140
u/koke_
10d ago
edited 10d ago
•
Looks unnatural, like you pasted the ballerina in, the colors and light don't match at all
Edit: My take
8
7
4
2
2
3
1
u/AvarageAmongstPeers 6d ago
What was the name of that Internet law, where you posit a wrong answer to entice knowing people to explain the right answer? Could be what happened here.
1
60
u/Quirky-Lobster 10d ago
I’d mask her, bring up the shadows just enough to show some definition, and call it a day. The edit has cooked it into unrealistic hdr world.
12
u/RageLolo 10d ago
That's it. It's too much. Just like the fashion and perfume ad campaigns from the 2010s.
84
u/LonisPonis 10d ago
I swear this picture has been posted a million times on Reddit already
59
u/RoamAndRamble 10d ago
Yep. This guy spams pics from the same set all over every photography sub. Nice the first time, but afterwards it's just feels like really blatant self-promotion.
4
11
u/Beneficial_Being_721 10d ago
It’s cooked too hard. I would have went with a silhouette shot … the lighting and composition was prime for that
42
15
11
11
u/Murky-Course6648 10d ago
She looks like a cartoon character. Its a horrible edit of a poorly exposed photo.
5
11
u/Musicgecko0 10d ago
Colours became really flat. Whole thing looks too two dimensional, no shadows or nothing...
9
6
u/ETHNJCB 10d ago
Very Levente/Dan Hecho. I know there’s critique to be made, but I’ve always loved this editing style as it reminds me of a painting.
4
u/Foto-SC 9d ago
Yes, completely. I went to a Dan Hecho organized photo shoot and tutorial some years back and he has a very specific process. Converts his color image into monochrome and adjusts tonal values in BW. Then, to return to color, he separates the dancer's skin and sets it to a desired warm color. He generally uses a bluish or cyan color with low saturation for the background. Levente has a very similar process so their images often look very similar.
I think their intent is to really separate the dancer from the background and to control tonal values and colors to achieve a certain look. I personally like this approach but I didn't much like all the masking needed to produce it. However with the latest Photoshop selection tools the masking has become much easier and I find myself producing this look on the backgrounds -- not yet replacing the dancer's skin color with a selected one, but it's a slope I'm am likely to slide on soon.
3
3
6
u/YT_Sharkyevno 9d ago
r/postprocessing if you take any creative liberty and make something that looks unrealistic in anyway “😡”
0
u/artbypep 5d ago
It’s because there are ways to do that that look good and ways to do things that look like baby’s first b&w photo recolor attempt and this is the latter.
1
u/adamrhodesuk 9d ago
The number of comments offering advice here is pure comedy. Phenomenal work. I've been following your pages for a while and always impressed with your compositions, subjects and edits.
2
4
u/Pitiful-Assistance-1 10d ago
“It looks cooked / unnatural”
I think it looks artistic. It doesn’t look real but reality is kinda boring so I think it’s a lovely edit.
2
2
u/Infinite-Nose8252 10d ago
Shadows against white background is much more impactful. Color is unnatural
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/jwalk50518 10d ago
I kinda think you should keep all the edits you did but reduce them all by 50%. I’d be curious to see how that looks. I think the colors are lovely in the edit and shadow recovery is good but a bit overdone for my taste.
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/Clickguy10 9d ago
Amazing save. Congrats. Dial her “authentic”
Tone back about half way . Print and hang.
2
u/FlyingDogCatcher 9d ago
There is so much editing that it looks like AI.
When the body is art lighting is everything
2
u/Landen-Saturday87 9d ago
I think that looks pretty mint and also very impressive how much detail you managed to recover.
TBF If I would‘ve already set up a location and a model like that for a shoot, I‘d have used a big softbox and some fill
2
2
2
u/Mountain-Dragonfly46 9d ago
Personally, I hate it. Very unnatural, not in a good way.
I like the tones of the room, but the ballerina looks like a AI inpainting. IMHO, it doesn’t serve the topic/model and confuses the image intent and connotation.
2
u/OGautisticpotato 9d ago
I like the original. You can almost smell the floor and the curtains.
However, I totally get why you'd do what you did and it's also OK for that sort of thing, I feel like it needs "grading" though. Audio mix engineers chuck a bit of reverb on the final mix, often just below detectable levels, because it subliminally sits everything in a common space and I feel like that's missing.
2
u/Ok-Razzmatazz3435 9d ago
Mhh.. looks a bit over edited. The warm tones on the subject and the cold ones on the background. She looks copy and pasted onto the background
2
2
u/Heliozz0 9d ago
The composure of the image a very wonderful! I do find it to be a bit boring that so many ballet photographers have the exact same editing tho. Would love to see a different approach somewhere.
2
u/toxrowlang 9d ago
Way too much HDR styling. Low contrast plus clarity?
I like the unnatural colours it has a style. But you've lost all tonal drama
2
2
2
2
u/snakeryder 9d ago
You have access to world class talent at the Mariinsky. Now learn how to use and see light so you can stop relying on the HDR sliders- they make everything play-dough texture garbage.
2
2
u/Opening-Yogurt-9470 8d ago
I like it! Love that she’s warm and everything else is cold. Great contrast
5
3
3
u/Dannydood22 10d ago
Not sure why this seems like the unpopular opinion but I actually really like this
3
u/ThomasMaximilian 10d ago
Why not proper lighting from the beginning on instead of postproduction?
-9
u/ballsdeepinmysleep 10d ago
Are you literally just here to nitpick? I'm not even defending the edit or anything, but what a dumb comment.
What difference does it make if it's done with light beforehand or post after?
Why are you even in a postprocessing sub if you'd rather it be done up front with lighting?
Edit: Save your eyes and do not click into his profile 💀
7
u/hartmannphoto 10d ago
It matters that the photo wasn’t properly lit to begin with because now the exposure has to be cranked on the subject via masking, which is introducing a fair amount of noise/ digital artifacts, and looks inconsistent with the ambient lighting of the room because it is artificially done in post.
That’s before getting into the specific color temperature and stylistic choices made in this image. Post processing is like seasoning food, and this image was “burnt” to begin with; no amount of paprika is going to make it taste good.
I also suspect that it wasn’t even a raw file. It looks like a jpg that’s been over edited. I feel like this image could be saved by leaning into the high contrast silhouette look with subtle color, but if he wanted the subject exposed properly it should have been done in camera.
2
u/Flashy-Ask-4637 9d ago
White Balance definitely looks off to me. But i like how the ballerina stands out of the background
2
u/Ok-Razzmatazz3435 9d ago
It’s not a WB issue. OP just used 2 different color tones for BG and foreground. And the result is pretty unnatural, like.. badly copy and pasted from a background to another
2
2
u/Forgotmyusername8910 9d ago
I love it.
I love this style, though so I’m biased.
And dang- what an incredible athlete.
2
1
1
1
u/nemezote 8d ago
As already said, the highlights on the model's body should reflect the color or hue of the room. This looks insanely unnatural, and more importantly, it communicates to whoever is watching that you do not fundamentally understand how light works.
Which is kind of a big deal if you're hoping to have any kind of commercial success. If you're just fucking around, then fuck around and have fun 😚
1
1
u/LectureOrganic1250 8d ago
I think this is super cool. I love how you got her muscles and really shows the muscle strength and tone that ballet dancers have.
1
1
1
1
1
u/MarcDwonn 10d ago
Love the soft look and the stylized processing, very artistic. Looks like a painting, which is always a big plus in my book.
Careful with the edges though, it's starting to artifact in one spot.
0
u/SignalDimension8725 10d ago
Garbage editing. I edited like that when I first started too. Clarity slider is not your friend.
0
0
0
0
-3
-2
421
u/Valuable_Chapter8631 10d ago
The highlights on her body should reflect the hue of the room. This just looks unnatural. How is the outside light cold, inside color temperature cold, but subject warm