Theme Old Fred

[Andre Pretorius]

Fred, that dirty old man…

No more bottom teeth (left tooth lost due to infection after a fight), riddled with arthritis, very low body fat even after eating, spine showing through thinning skin-but still a tough *******... Love him to bits, he STILL demands respect! Never thought I'd see him again..

Wanting to participate in Theme, so here goes...

Raw opened in LR, big crop.
WB manually selected, Basic etc. Converted to B&W, sharpened in LR, to CS6.

Normal masked adjustment layers, grouped, new layer with inverted mask for BG. Blending of 2 layers.
Saved as PSD, flattened.

Tried Duotone after converting to 8bit, did not like it (do not know how to drive this car?!), went back in history.

Warming filter, colour selected manually.

D&B layer with soft light, luminous layer, selectively lightened certain areas, PSD2

Resized, selectively sharpened, converted to sRGB.

Any suggestions welcome, psd file is waiting...

Nikon D3S 600 f4
ISO 800
1/400 @ f5,6
Beanbag.

Andre

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andre - Fred looks like he has led a long life with many battles. Nice portrait and I like the conversion. If it were mine I would give it some more midtone contrast. I might also back off on the sharpening very slightly.

TFS,
Rachel

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Andre,

I as well like the conversion. I agree with Rachel on the Mid-tones.
Hope he can make it much longer

Caio
Anette

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Andre,
he is really looking like an old man.
Conversion is working well for me, if that is what you wanted to achieve.For me it looks bit flat in the mid tones , like for Rachel and Anette.
I do feel he looks a bit lost in the image because of the "busy BKG". I would either darken the light , or lighten the darker tones to get a more uniform BKG. He will stand out more , i think.

I would call this the "Sensia Look"………….

TFS Andreas

[Marc Mol]

This depicts just how tough a life these old boys have, the pupils look very small indeed and I'm wondering what were the lighting cond's here Andre?
Agree with the BG competing here and would darken it to give more prominence to him.

Where was this taken and keen to know more of his history, is he still clinging to power Andreas?

He reminds me of an old boy in Ruaha named Grumpy, along with his brother are still holding onto their pride, as with this old boy same gaunt skinny look as on deaths door, but still strong
and a fiercly tough fighter. Main difference is Grumpy still has 1 canine left.

[Sid Garige]

Andre,

Very nice crop and interesting story. one more vote for mid tone correction.

-Sid

[Andre Pretorius]

Thank you all for commenting and suggestions.

I have been trying for a very long time to find a way to boost, "enhance" midtones. A very important treatment for an image.
The correct procedure have been evading me forever, even Uncle Google can not help.
I know of two ways- in S/H you can increase midtone contrast, and in curves wang the midpoint up or done. Even with luminosity as blending mode curves ruin an image so quickly.
There must be another way....
Tried to write an action, but it does not give the desired results.

Rachel, was previewing the image on web before posting, went back to CS and made the sharpening layer's opacity more, maybe a bit too much..

Thank you Anette, will do so if I can. Yip, will look for the old Man in October..

Point taken Andreas, will do that in RP.

Thank you Marc. Picked him up for the first time while he was mating, South of Dalkeith in 2009. We saw him on numerous occasions between 13th Borehole and Dalkeith. The first time he still had both lower canines, but an infection and a deformed left lower canine. He lost it when we saw him again in 2010. He was forever disciplining the sub adults, and we witnessed him booting out the young males at 14th, very far, some images with converter, not worthwhile. In 2011 he was already riddled with arthritis, difficult to move in colder weather. He defended his pride and kingdom all of these years, love him...

Thank you Sid, point taken.

Andre

[Steve Kaluski]

Andre, I would crop a fraction/sliver off the top to lose the two hotspots and tone down the larger spot on the RH trim. Will leave it to others about how much 'tonality' it needs as I'm away and working on the laptop, however the mouth area looks a little odd?

TFS
Steve

[Morkel Erasmus]

He's a legend, we also first saw him in September 2009 (he was mating south of Dalkeith - I wonder whether we might have been in the same sighting??). He looked much better back then - but even then we nicknamed him "Old Badmouth" because of his deformed lower jaw.

I like the conversion but it lacks punch for my tastes, Andre. In this repost I burned the shadows a bit and dodged the highlights on old Fred. WDYT?

[Andre Pretorius]

Thank you Steve and Morkel.

Steve will try the crop, his half open mouth was bit dark and lacking detail, did luminous layer at low opacity to open it up a bit. Maybe a bit too much? (got caught again)

Morkel, the name Fred comes from someone we know...

There were two old guys in a Kombi at almost every sighting from T/R, Mata-Mata, and North, were you in there….

I had a problem with detail in the area between the eyes, could not understand as nose was spot on. Focus was on eyes and with 5,6 the detail should be there?

Love your RP, and the mid tone secret continues….(maybe more B&D?…)

Andre

[Morkel Erasmus]

LOL Andre, we were in an X-trail so can't claim to be the Kombi-guy. I will post a photo from the mating sighting soon and you can say if it was the same sighting - the setting should give it away instantly if you were there.
RE the midtones - yes dodge and burn are my preferred tools for enhancing contrast and tonal range in B&W images...more so than midtone contrast actions and even LCE.

[Steve Kaluski]

his half open mouth was bit dark and lacking detail, did luminous layer at low opacity to open it up a bit.

Andre, why would you add a Luminosity layer if it was dark and lacking detail, curious in cased I have missed something?

[Andre Pretorius]

Hi Steve & Morkel

Steve, my lumi layer is masked and the effect is to LIGHTEN the painted areas. Have found that Dodge tool on dark areas does not work, gives "washed out" effect to lighten dark areas. Luminous layer revealing with brush at selected
opacity. This I found lighten dark areas and brings out the hidden detail.


Cropped as suggested by Steve, worked on BG. No lumi layer, but heavy hand in applying D&G with soft light, trying to enhance contrast between lights and darks.

Morkel, is that what you had in mind?

[Steve Kaluski]

I think the BKG is better with less distracting elements.

If that process works fine, I guess we each have different ways to achieve things, but this is why I said layers & masks really are so key.

[Andre Pretorius]

Sorry Steve, I do not understand??

Did D&B on a separate layer- Used TK's D&B layer, with mask painted?

[Morkel Erasmus]

Andre, I like your RP more than your OP, and I like the BG in your RP more than the one in my RP. Confusing myself now with all the acronyms.
And no, I never drove in KTP in an old kombi haha...