Old Style Portrait

[Anita Bower]

Our local art gallery is having a photo show with the theme of "Old Style Photos." I thought I'd take some photos of my husband with old-style poses and processing. He loved not having to smile. This is the first. I'd like your opinions and suggestions.

Taken indoors with natural light against a white wall. 50mm lens, 1/50, ISO 200, f2.5, tripod.
I converted it to B&W. Used Color Efex Pro Paper Toner filter to get the browns.
I blurred one of my landscape photos and converted its colors the same way, then blurred it somewhat. I used that as a texture for the lower part of the background.
I used a texture for the rest of the background. Unfortunately, I didn't keep a record of who created the texture.

All comments welcome.

[Anita Bower]

I forgot to convert the color profile to sRGB. Here is the converted image.

[Dennis Bishop]

The brown tones look great, and I really like how you handled the background, especially with it being lighter behind your husband. I'm guessing it was the applied texture that gave the feeling of graininess to the background. To me that adds to the old-style-photo effect. Color Efex has a Film Grain preset. I'd suggest adding that to your husband (or, possibly, to the entire image just for the sake of consistency). I think his expression works well for the image.

[Anita Bower]

Thanks Dennis. I added some grain to him. I'd never used this filter before.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Anita, I think you got a nice effect and I agree with Dennis' suggestion about adding grain to your husband. I also see a thin band of light-ish background around both of his hands and around the chair rungs that should be an easy fix?

[Diane Miller]

Very nice -- I really like the way you did the BG!

[Randall Farhy]

Interesting technique, I think it will fit the gallery theme well. Only suggestion would be to try an edge vignette to enhance the BG and subject separation. (ignore the Topaz BW preset alterations, I chose this one for speed and to show the edge effect ).

[Hazel Grant]

When I first saw the thumbnail, I thought it must be one of Christopher's photos. Imagine my surprise when I opened it up and saw it was yours! A great new direction for you. Comment: textures work well, as said. Perfect model, including non-smile. I like the clarity of the model vs the background. Con: I think the area around the hands and parts of the chair seems too white/greyish/light. Let us know how the competition comes out. Well done.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Anita, I really like this. I also like what Randall did in making it look more distressed. I might even through in some scratches for more authenticity.

[Paul Lagasi]

Anita, he certainly looks like a no-nonsense person in this photo. I think somewhere between frame #2 and #7 would be perfect. Making new images appear old is a lot tougher than it seems. Fotosketcher a free software, has an old photo effect that works pretty well. You can use sliders to get just the right amount of effect. Good advice about adding scratches and grain.

[Anita Bower]

Thank you all. I need to catch up. We lost power, phone, internet for a day and a half, still no phone. I have several versions of this photo which I will share. I also just downloaded Fotsketcher to try out.

[Anita Bower]

I went back and applies the background texture to the entire image, without removing any from the face or hands. I think it works better.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Looks great Anita!

[Cheryl Slechta]

Anita, hopefully the repost means your power has been restored. I'm reading that it's been a mess in PA. Hopefully you're warm and cozy now.
The repost is perfect

[Dennis Bishop]

I like it, too.

[Anita Bower]

Anita, hopefully the repost means your power has been restored. I'm reading that it's been a mess in PA. Hopefully you're warm and cozy now.
The repost is perfect

We were out of power for 1 1/2 days. Fortunately, we have a wood stove. We were pleasantly surprised to have out power restored so soon. Some are still without power.