Playing with a new PS plugin

[nyschulte]

Hi,

These were altered with the Lucis Art plugin:

1.



2.


3.


4.



I will consider all comments and critiques.

Nicolas

[Asher Kelman]

Nicolas,

Plugins can be a great time saver. These shots look attractive as is your model! I have a question about the cheek highlight in image # 2. What would you do about it. sometimes, in RAW developement, this can be tamed by slightly reducing saturation.

Now back to the plugins. Can see see the originals?

What was your workflow before this?

Asher

[nyschulte]

Hello Asher.

These are the originals (only converted to jpeg and resolution changed)

1.


2.


3.


4.



So my general workflow is as following:
1. i shoot raw (with Nikon D200)
2. cf card to external reader on macbook pro
3. import and conversion to DNG into Lightroom (now 1.1)
4. selection of keepers with 'client' / 'model'
5. eventual cropping
6. decision to go for color or B/W
7. at this stage i burn a cd with preview resolution for final selection of 10 pictures
8. at end of session i copy and backup original nef's to harddisks / DVD's
9. when we agree on the 10 pictures, i start the PP
10. i do first remove elements distracting (like ceiling in No 3) mainly due to small studio, not paying attention to the details
11. if i judge some poses unflattering for the 'model' i crop different (like in No 4, where the upper part of the leg seemed way to dominant for me)
12. Then i remove blemishes(clone or healing brush), stray hair and distracting parts of cloth (clone)
13. eventually i use the liquify filter for some 'problem zones' (to straighten noses, too round belly, ...)
14. next comes the neating of the skin (highpass filter on new layer, blurring the result, inverting, changing blending mode, layer mask and painting the skin only)
15. cleaning up and lightening the eyes with dodge and burn
16. some sharpening
Here my normal workflow ends
For printing i do eventually some curves and highlight/shadow

This time i jumped 15 and 16 and went to the lucis art plugin directly.

I tried several effects on different layers and played with blending and masking, i.e. on effect only on clothing, a different for the rest and blending all together.
I did not want to use the more edgy possibilities of the plugin, so it takes some time to adjust the settings.

Personally i already like the results and Tania likes them even more.

But as always the effects would be used occasionally only.

Nicolas

[Chip Springer]

Glad to see you didn't go with the full on Lucis look...I've seen a million of those and they have lost their impact. One tip is to set the Lucisart layer to Luminosity mode to avoid lucis artifacts such as posterization of the skin.

[Asher Kelman]

Originally Posted by Chip Springer

Glad to see you didn't go with the full on Lucis look...I've seen a million of those and they have lost their impact. One tip is to set the Lucisart layer to Luminosity mode to avoid lucis artifacts such as posterization of the skin.

Thanks Chip for your input here!

Not being a Lucas art users, could you show what the issues are and how one deals with them?


Asher

[nyschulte]

Thank you Chip.

The idea is to have one or 2 pictures by session which are a bit more 'edgy' (or artistic?)
Like this one where the clothing was a bit 'boring'.


For the second one i wanted the picture to pop.


The story for this picture is that she wanted a gift for her boyfriend using his favorite shirt:


Finally we had so much fun with this outdoor session, that i had to do this


<Bon amusement>

Nicolas

[Chip Springer]

Originally Posted by nyschulte

Thank you Chip.

The idea is to have one or 2 pictures by session which are a bit more 'edgy' (or artistic?)
Like this one where the clothing was a bit 'boring'.


For the second one i wanted the picture to pop.


The story for this picture is that she wanted a gift for her boyfriend using his favorite shirt:


Finally we had so much fun with this outdoor session, that i had to do this


<Bon amusement>

Nicolas

These look good!

[Chip Springer]

Originally Posted by Asher Kelman

Thanks Chip for your input here!

Not being a Lucas art users, could you show what the issues are and how one deals with them?


Asher

Lucisart can make skin very dirty looking, add horrible noise, and add posterization (especially noticable around cheeks, shoulders, arms). As mentioned, Luminosity mode prevents posterization since it isn't adding color. Sometimes I might add the original background as the top layer and set to COLOR mode. Use an NR filter for noise or the smudge tool. Add a mask to the layer to correct the problems. It is an interesting plugin but can be reproduced in PS. I do have clients that request it. A little Lucis goes a long way but I often find samples like the 3rd picture. Notice the muddy skin and the noise/artifacts introduced in the background.

[nyschulte]

This is a link to retouch pro, which explains the highpass / blur settings:

The quick de-grunge trick

Nicolas

[Nicolas Claris]

Bonjour Nicolas

back to the begining of your post, I like the pics but not very much the result after PP (too "plastic" look imHo)

Here's my take on one of them, just Noise Ninja and healing stamp. 'bout 2 minutes spent on the low res…



BTW: one more post with Adobe RGB images! please be aware that most of Windows browsers are not colored aware and display badly non sRGB images…
The image I've posted here is within sRGB…