Self-portrait. I used soft focus, and normal contrast at an shq setting. Exposure compensated by -0.5. Taken with natural light from a window to the left to obtain classic Renbrandt lighting. Post processing included dodging around the neck and bodice, colorizing around the eye and cheek, and using many layers to adjust brightness, contrast and hue and saturation. Also added a soft blur effect to soften skin, and used airbrushing to remove wrinkles. Increased sharpness around eyes and earring with spot sharpening.
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Place: 238 out of 284 Avg (all users): 4.6262 Avg (commenters): 4.8857 Avg (participants): 4.3972 Avg (non-participants): 4.8232 Views since voting: 3165 Views during voting: 528 Votes: 305 Comments: 46 Favorites: 2 (view)
I often think I received a score that was too low, but this one is ridiculously low. I know it may not be hyper saturated and super sharp, but it is striking and well done. on the bright side, over 10% of the voters thought it was a 7 or better and honestly,don't you really want to associate with the top 10% smartest people in the world anyway :)
Let me start out by saying that I'd probably have given this an 8 or a 9. I'm a sucker for the painting and I quite like this particular one.
Yes, the focus was indeed the issue here, but the star of the show is the lighting. Beautifully lit. Really nicely done there. Your pose is brilliant as well. So on the photography level, you've nailed it 100%. The problems come in in your PP choices.
I looked a bit closer at the original painting and a few things that I noticed in comparing:
painting has more of a 'grainy' feel
painting also has a bit of craqueling
painting has more of a 'posterization' look
painting is indeed more contrasty in the face (especially in the eyes, which almost look like Vermeer over-used the 'dodge' tool), but is not 'sharp'.
So it seems like the soft focus was an attempt to replicate those ideas.
If there had been some grain added, a very subtle amount of craqueling and posterization feel underneath the soft focus layer and a small amount of contrast boost in the eyes, I feel that this would have come together a bit better.
Another thing that I don't like is the black. It's common in photos to have pure blacks. But it's not common at all in painting to have pure blacks. In Vermeer's, his background is a dark brownish and serves to increase the "pop" of the blue headband just a bit. Your headband is red, so it wouldn't pop as well off a dark brownish, but I don't think it's necessary. This picture doesn't necessarily need to be MORE contrasty than the original, especially given the context of an older subject.
Since these are PP issues, I believe it could still be accomplished! Remastering this could be a nice way to get back into things in your first year back! :)
Of course it's a recreation of "The Girl with the Pearl Earring"
But you have titled it "The Lady with the Pearl Earring"
because it's a picture of the girl all grown up but who kept her pearl earring all those years!
Apparently there's a very fine line between soft-focus and out-of-focus. You probably would have received fewer out-of-focus comments if you had left more sharpness around the eyes.
I like the processing on this one up until the soft focus was applied. I like the other one because it's a smidge sharper. This is a good reproduction of an old painting. Hope you have continued with the idea.
I'm sorry they didn't see it, I still just love this, and think it's one of the best photos in your portfolio. Don't let the luke-warm reception here put you off of working with this technique. I would be proud to have something like this in my portfolio!
I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work in the future.
I recently saw that movie. This is a very skillful interpretation of that portrait. Lovely, and quite risky using a model who isn't 16 and drop dead gorgeous, it still works.
this is too out of focus for my taste and her eyes might look better if she wasnt looking so far behind her, also the tip of her nose blends in too much with her cheek..it looks like a painting :)
I apologize for not recognizing the painting. My one critique of this interpretation of it would be the use of shallow DOF. I think shallow DOF can work very well in a portrait. But I believe you generally want the near eye to be the one in focus, rather than the far eye (in this case, her right eye appears to be more in focus than her left).
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