Family photos - raw or processed?

stuart38

stuart38

stuart38

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What do you put in your family albums, raw pics or stylised images?

My wife doesnt like many of the pictures I take because by the time I'm finished in PS they are not exact likenesses of my daughter. I used a very basic airbrush technique on the ones below that I took today and my wife is insistent that she would prefer to see un-doctored pictures in our album.

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I can understand why she is saying that but for the amount of manipulation done I feel she is maybe just saying this because of the moral issue here " Your editing photographs of our daughter! Why? Isnt she perfect enough"

I like what you have done to them as it is only minor and the manipulation doesn't take away much from the original as I can see.

I think the first is wonderful btw
 
Fstop11 said:
I can understand why she is saying that but for the amount of manipulation done I feel she is maybe just saying this because of the moral issue here " Your editing photographs of our daughter! Why? Isnt she perfect enough"

I like what you have done to them as it is only minor and the manipulation doesn't take away much from the original as I can see.

I think the first is wonderful btw
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I agree and I do keep all the originals because who knows, in 10 years time I may feel the same way she does.

For now I can justify the editing because the images are my vision of my daughter, her innocence and youth unaffected by poor lighting or skin blemishes. I think it will be harder to justify this as charachter portrayal rather than unashamed stylisation as time goes on and my daughter gets older.

I imagine most people have similar dilemas with their family pics, do we edit just because we can?

On a lighter note.... COME ON ENGLAND :D
 
Any chance of the unedited versions for comparison? From what I can see here you have done a great job with the post processing. What technique you use for the airbrushing? Those eyes are gorgeous btw, you done much pp to them? Very pretty daughter you have. :)
 
Messiah Khan said:
Any chance of the unedited versions for comparison? From what I can see here you have done a great job with the post processing. What technique you use for the airbrushing? Those eyes are gorgeous btw, you done much pp to them? Very pretty daughter you have. :)
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This is the original, auto levels in CS3 and resized using bicubic sharper

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Thanks :) As you can see I've not done a huge amount to the original but the fact its altered is a problem to my wife.

I clone out blemishes then add a simple gaussian blurr layer and mask onto a copy of background and gently, using a 10% brush cover the areas I want to soften. Her eyes don't usually need much done to them but a bit of contrast can help and sometimes I give them a boost of blue which my wife hates even more and I only do for artistic purposes not for the album.
 
I think I may have gone too far with this one, I like it as an image but does that make it a family portrait? But then again, take a high street company like Venture, would they do a similar thing and get away with it because you dont get to see the originals?

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Comparing the origional to the edited one.. I really like what you have done. You have done it subtly enough to really work imo. :)

Edit; Was talking about the first image. The second one, I would agree that you have gone too far, especially wit hthe airbrushing.
 
you are probably right, I guess the trick is to use these techniques sparingly... and try to hide the originals for comparrison :)
 
i like both, but i understand where your wife is coming from, i think i could understand that it can hurt, to see something already so beautiful (which your daughter is) being 'made better', which is how i assume your wife sees it.

i think maybe the originals for the album, and the edited ones for you and the walls or what ever :)

your daughter is very beautiful without the edits, perhaps you should be appreciating her for what she is? (nothing wrong with editing the lighting etc :))
 
I have to say I'm with your wife the origional looks much more alive and natural, the edit gives her an almost doll like quality with the perfect skin etc. I can see where your comming from and I'm sure as a galery shot or a wall print you processed photo's would work really well but for a family album I'd want her to look like herself so I could always see her just as she was.
 
I just asked my wife what she thought and she likes the unedited version the best. I think what you have done is good but I also like the unedited version better more natural.
I have edited pictures of my daughter before but mostly just the odd crop and levels etc. now she is older she asks me to clone any spots etc out lol
 
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I think whilst you have done an excellent job processing them, for personal pictures I'd always use the originals! Unless I was specifically asked to airbrush them....
 
I'm sure my wife will get her way in the end, I'm not really arguing very hard for my side anyway.

Seems like most people would use the unedited ones, with a levels/curves tweak, would the same hold true if you were doing paid work for someone? I have been asked to do a little bit of private work for a couple of families which is partly what spurred me on to pose the original question to my wife the other day about which of our picstures to put in our album.

I think I will show the families examples of some plain processed and some 'over-processed' pics to decide the style they like in advance. My betting is that they will opt for 'over processed' since they will be paying for the photos and want something different to that which they could take themselves.
 
stuart38 said:
I think I may have gone too far with this one, I like it as an image but does that make it a family portrait? But then again, take a high street company like Venture, would they do a similar thing and get away with it because you dont get to see the originals?

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I think that is amazing!

Really like that, gorgeous eyes. I can see where your wife is coming from, does look a bit Advertisement esque.

Josh
 
Depends who the pic is for and what its for. The client is always right. Howeve, you dont have to show them the RAW image :) I think the work you have done on the 1st pic, compared to the origanl is fair enough, slightly lighter, smother skin, not much done. Maybe whiten the eyes 5% and darken the pupils 5% to make them stand out a bit more, other than that, looking good to me.

Love the last one too. Maybe print them both off and let the mum pick, just dont tell her which is which :)

ColiN
 
I'll chip in here to say I'm not a fan of air brushing type stuff. I prefer pictures of people to look naturalalthough of course you'll always need to do some editing to get the best from them but for me personally I never tend to go for photos that make my first thought be something along the lines of 'thats been photoshopped' rather than 'what a great photo'.

They are lovely shots though, its just the editing thats not to my taste :)
 
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