BRUTAL! This shot in of itself wasn't that hard but the post processing was a nightmare!
This is a double exposure, but not one of the nice and easy one's like with the D200 where you take took shots and superimpose them. THis is the ghetto D70 version where you keep the shutter open for 10seconds and do everything in the dark with the "test" button on the flash. So several things happened as a result:
NOISE and UNDEREXPOSED!
To expose this correctly i had to increase the EV and play with levels. To reduce the noise I should have used NI but as you can tell,the shots pretty noisy*. That's cause I didn't use NI. Once I clipped the the colours, NI wouldn't work anymore. And I couldn't really use neat image before clipping because my laptop screen isn't calibrated and in order to make sure you all see a decent coloured image, I had "labuda" look at the images on his screen (he's in Canda by the way and I'm in Warsaw) and then he would tell me how to adjust the white balance, vibrance, levels etc. CS2 isn't specific or detailed enough when it comes to doing this via MSN. Doing it in RAW was easier. But as a result I couldn't use NI and I think some might nail me here. I could have tried to do it the other way around but I had to rely on labuda here and didn't want to use up all of his time. Also, I'm leaving for France in 2 days and I have other things to do now that have been put off because of this shot.
The other problem is that the walls in my communist flat are yellow. And as a result, despite the fact that this was shot in the dark, shadows on my skin became yellowish. And seeing as there wasn't much I could do about that, I decided to desaturate quite a bit.
Also, me screen is really bright and I can still see the velvet in the background. But I know that I have a tendency make my shots to dark for that reason, so I'm not levelling the BV completly, hoping you guys won't see it or tell me the shot is too dark.
This shot has caused me so much grief that I can't even look at it anymore. Had this been ADVANCED EDITING then it would have not been such a problem, but it's basic. So there you go!
It looked fine on my screen!....god....next mission: get a calibration gizmo.
Blah. The things one does for DPC, geez.
Good luck to all
**********
*Ok, so I went back and decided to use NI cause the grain was killing me! THe hours I've spent doing this...GEEZ!
++++++++ Post Challenge
Well I guess those hours payed off. Top ten finally and a serious average booster :) Thank you all for the comments and votes
Statistics
Place: 7 out of 132 Avg (all users): 6.5146 Avg (commenters): 7.2353 Avg (participants): 6.1800 Avg (non-participants): 6.6032 Views since voting: 3050 Views during voting: 432 Votes: 239 Comments: 22 Favorites: 0
So this is your entry for the 'Hate' challenge. I think you've done a good job of meeting the challenge. The shot has scored well, and congrats on the top 10. I actually have to agree with the majority here, I think you've done a real nice job on the image, especially being within the basic ruleset. I think you did fine on the levels, your background looks black to me, no hint of the velvet. The expressions on the faces are very fitting, and definitely send the theme home. I'd also like to note that the upwards lighting can be a great tool, and I think you've used it quite well to your advantage here, it works well with the concept of the shot and helps the overall theme. You've made a cool image, and it did well in the challenge, I can't really point out any 'improvements'. One thing that you could possibly consider, not really an improvement at all, but I'm thinking a shot like this, maybe taking the slight offset of the 2 faces, and increasing that offset some, creating more of a diagonal comp, perhaps adding a little bit of dynamics, compositionally. But, maybe not, that could just be me :-). Anyways, nice job on the image, it is pretty cool, and again, congrats. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments or anything.
A double exposure and a recognizable face is enough to set you apart from the crowd in this challenge. Aside from that, great idea on the challenge and good execution. This should be a top finisher. Good luck.
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