Using Photoshops Shadow Highlight tool and using the milieu to define the subject!
Rachel,
It's looking good! The thing that stands out to me is the jacket... using the soften tool should help to smooth out the strange coloring that is showing up there. I might also trying cropping in a bit more close.... say to, just under the shoulders... and do the sides and top in proportion to that.
Trudy,
You have a good eye. Yes the jacket is developed with a strange curve.
Rachel,
I was going to leave this one go. I seem to be doing too much editing these days. However I just want to demonstrate for you how easy the Shadow Highlight tool can be. I'm sort of perplexed and even annoyed that this easy tool of Photoshop is so rarely used by even experienced photographers. So let's look at that. Also your crop is damaging to your intent which is to reveal something of the man's aura as a special individual that people notice. Your version leaves him isolated and alone! This is one more example of the damage of the aphorism "Frame tight and crop closer!" Milieu and reactions of individuals are part of your
storytelling! Don't throw them away! The gurus are great for teaching the hows but hardly ever the esthetics. Ask what work your photograph must do for you? What of the tools available can help bring this out and add a sense of beauty if that's what you wish.
Then ask what is especially human about this gentleman? He's elderly, fragile perhaps yet remarkable and a treasure. So can we leave information in the picture to show this? But first isn't the background distorted in that the verticals are diverging? So we "select all" and correct in Edit, Transform, Perspective*. I admit the heads may be a little long, but that looks better to me!
Crop to
include the gentleman on the right as he defines your main subject by his attention and even respect. As always, duplicate this new layer. You always want an uncorrected version of each stage of your work.
Now selectively blur the top copy.
Next, erase a rim around the figures at 40% to let 40% of the edge underneath to show through. The center of the people are now erased totally. Maybe not all of the "watcher". The background detail is parsimoniously and selectively brought back by very gradual erasure (set erasor to 15%) of plants and flowers and a little more. Add local fine edits to taste**
There's no sharpening. The rest of changes would be after a print. I think now you will appreciate a more community based subject not a lost elderly man. There is, I believe beauty and dignity.
Asher
* A tilt shift lens will prevent this. Read up about Schleimflug.
** For example, de-saturate a tint tad to skin redness on the watching mans left forehead and blur. Then add back a highlight by dodging a strip to continue the highlight higher up.