Bob ... a little too soft in the soft areas, making it a bit more 'dreamy' rather than oof/distance/foreground clues. Some transitions seem smooth and natural, while others seem too abrupt and "bi-directional" rather than linear in progressive nature.
RustyBug wrote:
Bob ... a little too soft in the soft areas, making it a bit more 'dreamy' rather than oof/distance/foreground clues. Some transitions seem smooth and natural, while others seem too abrupt and "bi-directional" rather than linear in progressive nature.
If that makes sense.
Kent,
Yes, makes perfect sense - initial tests were more like splatter-painting with no real purpose or plan in mind. Proof of concept one might say.
Are you most interested in the black bleed blur or also the toning? The toning reminds me of full strength selenium. I usually did a split selenium or split sepia where the effect was a little more subtle.
I can see where both the toning and the blurring effect could be effective with some subjects. Love the bed and the bedspread!
dmacmillan wrote:
Are you most interested in the black bleed blur or also the toning? The toning reminds me of full strength selenium. I usually did a split selenium or split sepia where the effect was a little more subtle.
Doug,
Both if you have comments or suggestions - somewhat new turf for me.
Copy layer, Gaussian blur, multiply blend, mask, brush gently with soft brush while using reduced opacity settings. I think in retrospect I used a white-wash brush instead. Localized sharpening on bedspread.
I can see where both the toning and the blurring effect could be effective with some subjects. Love the bed and the bedspread!
Thanks,
Hand-crochet by my great-grandmother - weighs a ton.
Bed, an acquisition of my wife's in celebration of moving into this house.
The first time I saw the "black bleed" technique used was by Norman Seef. When I was attending school in Los Angeles, my wife worked for Global Business Management. She was an account executive and handled numerous people in the entertainment industry, including Norman. She also handled the accounts of another avid photographer and really nice person, Roddy McDowell.
Through her relationship with Norman, I did some part time work as shooting assistant and printing. Norman came about his look essentially through lack of knowledge of technical aspects of black and white. He developed his negatives in Dektol! Talk about snappy negatives! To compensate for his very contrasty negatives, he developed his prints in D-76. In his early days, he preferred a very soft focus, dreamy look. Instead of using fog filters on the camera, which was in vogue back in the early '70's, he diffused while printing. That's how he got the blacks to "bleed" into the whites. The problem was between the use of D-76 as a print developer and his diffusion, prints on normal grade paper were very muddy. To compensate, Norman printed on Afga #6, the most contrasty grade available.
Norman didn't deliver contact sheets to customers. On a typical shoot, he'd expose 30 rolls or so. After development, I'd make contact sheets and deliver them. He'd go through and mark a frame or two from nearly every roll. I'd then make 16x20's of the frames he marked! These would get delivered to the art director.
He was very particular about his diffusion. There was a particular stocking sold by Sears that he preferred. I'd then stretch it in an embroidery hoop and hold it under the lens for part of the exposure, from 40 to 60% of the time.
RustyBug wrote:
Interesting story ... but I'm trying to figure out how I can use my wife's hose & hoops in PS.
I think the best you can hope for is to wear your wife's hose while you edit. Your photos might then appear to be softer and more sensitive.
I find it difficult to comment on just the processing, not the image holistically, without seeing what you started with out of camera.
Holistically the tonal gradient in the photo, the angle of the lighting, and the placement of the sharper foot of the bed in the foreground make the spread the focal point due to the way it is cross-lit to reveal it's texture. The sepia gives it a warm, homey vibe, but the blurring looks faked and gimmicky to the point I immediately notice it isn't natural and it distracts my thoughts from the content. Using my newly acquired C&C vocabulary, I'd say it has a "lightly sanded" look to it.
As an alternative with regards to processing affecting scanning of the content and the message that creates I'd suggest only blurring the bright window shade and far wall with the photos which serve to frame the focal point of the bed, but only to the point it's not really notices you did it — more like the eye in person tracking focus down the bed, and leave it, including the headboard that is part of your story, sharp. Try versions with and without varying degrees of blur on the nightstand and lamp.
In terms of tracking and leading the eye it may be more effective to slightly blur the front of the bed slightly creating a progressively sharper path back across the top of the spread to the headboard. There the trick would be finding the right balance that pulls the eye back to the headboard, but also pulls them back to the foreground to see the larger detail in the foreground. That crosses over into composition but its something you can control with a higher POV (showing more the top than the end / side of the spread) and near/far perspective (creating greater size contrast in the foreground than you have here as a way to pull the viewer back for a second look at the detail of the spread as their last impression vs. thinking, "nice bedroom".
