I'm working on making my first "Blurb" book. Last Spring I took a large number of nighttime silohuettes using an empty lighted store window as my backdrop. I set up my camera on the edge of the sidewalk a block from where I live and photographed people as they walked by. Most didn't even notice that I was taking their photo. I should explain that I live in Greenwich Village NYC and there's usually so much going on at street level that what I was doing barely registered.
Over the course of 3-4 weeks, I took a large number of silohuettes, and have narrowed them down initially to the best 200. I've started to process the photos in CS5. Being somewhat of a novice at photoshop, I wondered whether some of you might have suggetions as to the best steps to use to process silohuettes and get the most from them.
As an example, I'm posting one silohuette, with no processing, and a second version with my processing. Any suggestions are much appreciated, and feel free to edit my photo.
The shooting part of the project ended when the store filled the window with merchandise and I lost my "canvas."

I really like the concept and I am sure you have some great street subjects.
I agree with the crop off the bottom but would prefer to see the top left as in the original. Sides seem OK as cropped.
Some dirt or smudges on the "canvas" should be cleaned out, especially noticeable lower left but throughout the image. Black spot in front of her lips. Pure BW interpretation would probably work well too.
Finally, spelling is "silhouette".

Scott

Excellent concept! In PP, perhaps a curses change to increase contrast, a little retouching, a bit of noise reduction, and a wee crop?

Thanks to sbeme and antipode for your suggestions. Antipode, can you take me through the processing steps that you used. I'm not sure what a "curses change" is to increase contrast. Did you use DeNoise to reduce noise? I prefer your crop, making the black border of even thickness on 3 sides.

"Curses" ... I hate it when typos get past spell check and they are real words with a very different meaning.

"curses" ... I think she meant "curves"

Thanks Rusty. Got a laugh out of this, as there are a lot of curses when using photoshop.

I added a curves layer with a steeper slop to increase the contrast. (A "curses change" is what you get when you fat-finger type "curves change".)

- cropped the image
- used the patch tool to remove the rectangular objects from the top
- used the sharpen tool to sharpen the edge of the silhouette
- used Topaz DeNoise5 to reduce the grittiness in the bottom and edges
- added a curves layer to bump the contrast

Yes, Kent, fat-finger fumbled fubar'd. Curses, foiled again.

To Auntipode: Thanks so much for taking the time to list and explain your post production steps. Much appreciated.

You are welcome!