Ok, in all actuality I'm much more of a desk jockey, but this is me on my farm. The farm is much more of my wife's thing, but I've done enough farm-hand stuff to earn my stripes. This is my first self-portrait (actually my first real portrait of any kind), so I'm not sure how it will do. But I liked the composition and the color, so we'll see.
Raw -> JPEG in RawShooter
In Gimp:
Crop
Scale 95% horizontal (the proportion seemed a bit off otherwise)
Curves
Sat (decreased red)
Minor cloning
Radial gradient layer white to black overlayed in soft light mode (I think around 70%)
10% red overlay to warm it up a little
Resize
Curves again
Dodge & Burn around eyes
Sharpen around eyes
Statistics
Place: 91 out of 236 Avg (all users): 6.0247 Avg (commenters): 6.4667 Avg (participants): 5.8456 Avg (non-participants): 6.1905 Views since voting: 1012 Views during voting: 400 Votes: 283 Comments: 17 Favorites: 1 (view)
Greetings from the Critique Club. My critiques are generally geared towards trying to help you improve your score within DPC, and not on any true "artistic" merit of the photograph itself, unless it relates to DPC voters and scoring. Please keep that in mind as you read this.
Initial Thoughts A distinct lack of contrast and sharpness in key areas here, but a touching and emotive shot.
Composition/Content The composition has a nice feel for me, with the exception of being a *little* crowded around the facial area. You're a good model, and have a nice presence, so you shouldn't be hesitant to use it to your full potential. I feel quite a shyness here that your look almost tries to belie, but your choice of crop keeps it there. You say it's your first self-portrait, so I think that comes through here in the way that I've said. Slightly shy, but with a deeper "I can do this!" attitude.
Background Nicely out-of-focus, but a bit flat. I think it'd have been stronger if there was more light-play back there and slightly stronger contrast/color going on.
Camera Work/Technical A few things that I notice here.
Exposure: Slightly hot on some highlights. This can be difficult to control, but I see you shot RAW, so I'm wondering if you dropped the exposure enough to bring detail back to the highlights, or if they were blown too much for that. If so, then for the future, I'd suggest trying to meter as much for the brightest part of your photo as you can, so to avoid that in the future.
Focus: Focus seems ok, but the photo overall still seems soft. At first I thought maybe the focus had grapped the lip of the hat, but I see it's not so. F/4.8 is a pretty decent aperature for this type of portrait too, from my experience.
Digital Processing Ok, since the focus seems ok, then a little more work is needed in USM. I'd suggest starting with a 50/0.3/0, and then tweaking from there. Sometimes I find that I can go to a 130/1.3/3 to get the sharpening I need. If you find that your work is sharpening certain areas too much, I'd suggest sharpening on a layer, and then painting back in the original in varying opacities to get the look you wish. The areas here I'd concentrate on are the eyes/facial area, and the leather "belt" on the hat. The entire photo, I think, also could use a touch more sharpening to it as well.
The rest of your processing looks really good. No artifacts from it, and all nice choices from what I can tell. Your skin tones are nice. Contrast is still another thing that is lacking in the darker areas of the image.
Fits the Challenge Unless it's not you, it definitely fits.
My Opinion of the Photo A nice photo showing some conflicting emotion, and requiring just a few little tweaks to really stand it out. I love the look you have, but the cropping isn't my favorite. Still, a 6+ is never a bad score, so you resonated well with the voters. Good job, and good luck in future challenges.
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