High-key portrait process

From my Flickr photostream of this image:

Mark Chamberlin says:

“This is a really strong effect. Would you mind divulging what you did to the original image to get it to this point? “

Well Mark, I start with a nice looking model.

Seriously, this photograph was taken almost as framed here. Sometimes when I really like the expression on a wider framed picture I will crop down to the face. this photo of Mona Marie was one in a series of tight shots I took over several minutes, I coached her to look here, there, up and down. I feel this image has the ‘strong effect’ you mention because she is looking pencefully away from the camera.

Orginal photograph

The original image is show here. The first step I took was to spot heal any blemishes (of which there were very few, Mona Marie has very smooth skin), then I did a general smoothing to accommodate the high-key effect. I try to leave enough detail to the face so the larger delicate features are not destroyed.

With this photograph I did add back a bit of color to her lips, but just color, I liked the formation and shape/size as it was. After several bleaching passes to reach the desired effect, I sharpened the image.

Normally I have to resist the urge to tweak more; here I did not.