i take a lot of candid shots. apart from general lighting considerations there is no time to plan anything. i see something i like and take the shot. usually the situation changes so fast there is no second chance. admittedly many of the shots turn out poorly and i delete them. very few of the shots are gems that should not be altered while a significant portion have enough interesting qualities that with some editing could turn out very nicely. this shot that i took with my Samsung S22 is one of these. the editing described below was done on the phone itself
i like the framing, the bokeh and the parent's hand on the girl's shoulder. but the main feature is the girl's face inside that outrageous hood, so while i will keep the candid shot i wanted to edit this to become a portrait.
zooming in showed lots of potential but also room for improvement
now that the context is gone her head seemed too slanted so first i straightened it thereby also reducing the hand on the shoulder.
the main light sources create nice shadows from the hood but other complex lighting casts shading on her face. that looks fine in the original but by removing the surrounding context in this close-up it no longer looks right.
so i applied the camera's facial effects to even out the shading. then i applied subtle styling effects to give a more dreamy look.
applying too much styling will make the image resemble a work of art rather than a photograph. that is not what i want here but i do want a slightly unreal touch approaching the borderline between the two. i liked the result after applying small amounts of 3 different styles but they produced too much saturation.
so i reduced that and increased the exposure and warmth slightly. still i can't help but wonder if i have overdone the styling.
i am fond of black and white portraits and wanted to see how this one would look. i did not apply the black and white filters available. they often change too much. instead i just reduced the saturation 100%. i am very satisfied with eyes, the hood and the facial glow but still wonder if i softened the skin too much. that is the dilemma of editing. there are so many possibilities that it is hard to know when to stop.
