- I already feel nearly overwhelmed by the amount of information I need to take in on the camera side of things.
- I don't want to use Photoshop as a crutch for poor camera skills. I want to focus on capturing a strong initial image.
With that said I have jumped into the post processing waters by necessity. My church college group is sponsoring an art show and I wanted to enter something for judging.
A quick rundown of the process I went through:
- healing brush tool to remove blemishes on skin and some shine on sucker
- burned a tiny bit on the face (using this technique)
- high-pass enhancement from Strobist (80 on the filter, opacity at 25%)
- unsharpen mask (80, .5, 0)
The goal was for the image to be enhanced without it being obviously Photoshopped. For my novice eye I think I succeeded considering the print size of 8x10 and all.
I really liked how the Photoshopped image turned out. I was bummed that I had to crop so much off the top and bottom to print. In the original you can see the full gun on the bottom and full head on the top. I need to remember to account for this cropping when shooting something I am going to print.
Update: After stepping away from the image for a day and then looking at it again I see some things I don't like. Namely that the shirt looks over sharpened and the high-pass enhancement I did left the photo less color saturated than the original. I should have ramped up the saturation but didn't notice it.
The original
The final
Story behind the image
The title of the photo is "Fleeting Pleasure" and the concept came from my study of 1 Corinthians 6:18 whereas the name itself came more from Hebrews 11:25.
If you aren't a Christian the meaning might not be obvious? I am trying to convey the biblical concept that sin (the sucker) is enjoyable for a season but leads to death. Specifically, the Bible says that sexual sin is different than other sins because it's against your own body. I thought the idea of blowing your face off with a gun illustrated that well.
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