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New portrait and NX control points C&C welcome

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rhlpetrus

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I've been playing with NX and portraits the last few days, and thanks to many people here, including PAM, Ed and others, I'm doing a little progress. Here's another portrait of my daughter, which I worked using Control Points on Campture NX. I didn't use Brush (dodge/burn), even background was done using CPs. Also, a little curve for correcting contrast and black point, and also some USM.

First is color with only USM, second and third are processed color and b&w, this one only adjusted from color via filtering, no other adjustment.

I think these examples show how much a RAW (NEF) image can be enhanced in all apects using PPing. And Control Point tech, a NIK technology, is simply amazing.

Please C&C, thanks.







--
Regards, RHLPedrosa

 
Thank you for sharing the photo of your beautiful daughter and the NX knowledge you have acquired from other posters. I also have found Capture NX to be powerful, not just for processing Nikon NEF files but also for JPEG and TIFF. Consequently, I now shoot in NEF with my D300. I also shoot in RAW format with my other digicams, convert them to TIFF using other RAW converters, and process them in NX.

--
Sam

http://community.webshots.com/user/SamPhotoNZ
 
Glad to have a fellow NX fan. A lot of people look at the relatively slow processing speed and dismiss it out of hand but I personally find that even though the processing is slow and the itnerface is non-standard I can get much closer to a completed product and with much better colors than I can even think about with ACR. I also don't like that ACR automatically just throws away most of the decisions I made when I took a shot.

Control points in NX are really amazing. Actually I am pretty disappointed with the control point implementation in Color Efex Pro 3. It is so much more limited than the NX implementation.

Keep posting. Great stuff.

--
Ed C.
 
Thnks ED, in fact you were the first to give me hints about control points and now I'm just hooked on them.

Cheers!
Ed_C said:
Glad to have a fellow NX fan. A lot of people look at the relatively
slow processing speed and dismiss it out of hand but I personally
find that even though the processing is slow and the itnerface is
non-standard I can get much closer to a completed product and with
much better colors than I can even think about with ACR. I also
don't like that ACR automatically just throws away most of the
decisions I made when I took a shot.

Control points in NX are really amazing. Actually I am pretty
disappointed with the control point implementation in Color Efex Pro
3. It is so much more limited than the NX implementation.

Keep posting. Great stuff.

--
Ed C.
Click to expand...
--
Regards, RHLPedrosa

 
Thanks for comments, yes, NX seems like a very powerful soft for PPing. It gets slow sometimes and tells us "not responding", but waiting is worth it. Hope Nikon and NIK makes it faster in future versions.

Best, Renato.
Sam.SHC said:
Thank you for sharing the photo of your beautiful daughter and the NX
knowledge you have acquired from other posters. I also have found
Capture NX to be powerful, not just for processing Nikon NEF files
but also for JPEG and TIFF. Consequently, I now shoot in NEF with my
D300. I also shoot in RAW format with my other digicams, convert
them to TIFF using other RAW converters, and process them in NX.

--
Sam

http://community.webshots.com/user/SamPhotoNZ
Click to expand...
--
Regards, RHLPedrosa

 
I, too, am using Capture NX. Just purchased the NIK Pro package. Yes, the control points add much versatility to NX. I don't like the NX interface. Very confusing to me. Hope Nikon revamp the program in the next version.
--
Regards, Paul
inHaliburton
 
Wow those are really nice. I have just started using NX and I love it. Can you tell me how you got the eyes to look so nice? Thanks in advance!!
 
Nice work, although the eyes in the colour retouched one look a little bit too bright. I'd probably have settled for somewhere inbetween the original and retouched version. Maybe I'm a bit conservative when it comes to things like that on portraits, but I like things to have a more natural feel. I don't like seeing eyes that are too bright, or teeth that look like they've been covered in gloss white paint. I don't think you've gone that far though.

Glad to hear you're enjoying NX. It's a great program. We need more of these threads on here.

--
Hamish

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://theflyingpie.zenfolio.com
 
This one was much harder for me to critique (Where's PAM. lol) and try my own retouching on. We are reaching the end of my limited knowledge on eyes! ahhh. But, it is something that I am also trying to greatly improve on and this photo was great practice.

Last night I was looking at your colored retouched version again, and trying to figure it out. My 18 y.o. daughter (who is way more artistic than myself) came walking by. I asked her, "Something just doesn't seem quite right to me. What do you see?"

Without missing a beat she said, "Her eyes looks kind of alian-ish, there's not enough pupil."

Ah, ha. So, maybe that's it??? With that in mind, here's my try. See what you think? I was trying to keep it natural looking.

MY VERSION:



COMPARISON



--
Chandra
 
You've got it right. Folks at D80's forum said same, I had already redone it, see below. Also, see an untouched jpeg to compare to well lit image of eyes.
Hamish McC said:
Nice work, although the eyes in the colour retouched one look a
little bit too bright. I'd probably have settled for somewhere
inbetween the original and retouched version. Maybe I'm a bit
conservative when it comes to things like that on portraits, but I
like things to have a more natural feel. I don't like seeing eyes
that are too bright, or teeth that look like they've been covered in
gloss white paint. I don't think you've gone that far though.

Glad to hear you're enjoying NX. It's a great program. We need more
of these threads on here.

--
Click to expand...




--
Regards, RHLPedrosa

 
Nice, I think it's another image altogether, and like it too.

Here's my second version, softer overall (also posted in reply to Hamish). Below it, there's a jpeg from camera, no PP (except USM). It's with flash, so has more pop, but this is what her eyes look like when well-lit in real life.

I chose this softer version because of her expression calls for it, IMO, following someone's comment in the D80's forum.





--
Regards, RHLPedrosa

 
haroon08 said:
Wow those are really nice. I have just started using NX and I love
it. Can you tell me how you got the eyes to look so nice? Thanks in
advance!!
Click to expand...
I used control points both on pupils and on whites. Brightening and a little more contrast. Control points also on the face to keep it put and on the background to pull it down a bit, reducing its contrast. The a curve to get optimal contrast and a good black point. To make both eyes the same, I copied the control points after djustment and pasted them to the other eye.

Se other softer version below, still much punchier that original image, but better for this particular portrait, IMO.

Best
--
Regards, RHLPedrosa

 
erratum: should be "irises" not "pupils" below.
rhlpetrus said:
I used control points both on
Click to expand...
rhlpetrus said:
pupils
Click to expand...
rhlpetrus said:
and on whites. Brightening and a
little more contrast. Control points also on the face to keep it put
and on the background to pull it down a bit, reducing its contrast.
The a curve to get optimal contrast and a good black point. To make
both eyes the same, I copied the control points after djustment and
pasted them to the other eye.

Se other softer version below, still much punchier that original
image, but better for this particular portrait, IMO.

Best
--
Regards, RHLPedrosa

Click to expand...
--
Regards, RHLPedrosa

 
Thank you, yep, very hard to say no, but have to once in a while!
C Wills said:
How do you say "no" to those eyes? LOL

She's precious.

--
Chandra
Click to expand...
--
Regards, RHLPedrosa

 
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