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35 thoughts on “Smoother portraits”

  1. I just import the full resolution image after export from SPP5.5 into third party skin evening, smoothing programs. Plenty of them out there to chose from. Nice to see that you can do it all with SPP 5.5—but I’m still partial to the third party programs that I use. 🙂

  2. I’ve been using negative fill light instead as it also adds something of a soft glow reminiscent of the soft focus filters that were popular in film days, but I’ll have to try your setting as well now.

    Have you ever used negative fill for portraits, and if so, how do you think it compares to your NR settings?

    1. Mike, I think Negative Fill Light also has a positive effect but it also often means a loss of highlight detail. In such occasions it alters the processed photo too much in regard to appearance. That said I like to use -0.1 a lot as it gives me nicer contrasts.

  3. Thanks Bob: This demo and discussion really sheds light on the workings of Chroma and Luminance in a way I have never seen previously. I can see how it might also work on landscapes and cityscapes. I guess I will be testing this out on my photo going forward. A million thanks. Congrats on the soon to be new arrival.

    1. You’re welcome! It was quite a eye opener when I found out about this. Be aware though that there is a bug in SPP where the NR settings are not always correctly applied in the exported file 🙁

  4. I also like to use -0.1 negative fill light for softer looks. And I also wasn’t aware of the effects of chroma/lumi in terms of microcontrast … so thx for making me aware and good luck to you!

  5. Thank you very much for finding this out! I love this camera but the portraits had a bit to much information to say the least but now they look fantastic. Thanks again.

  6. Nice advice, somewhat reminiscent of the work that Carl used to do back in the day. Like others here I have tended to play around with the negative fill light but I will have to keep it in mind when I finally upgrade top the SD1 and/or DP3.

  7. Great article, Bob. And just in time! I am processing individual and couple shots from a gathering a few years back. We are all over 60 and so need something to look less real than nature has left us!! I’ll give this a shot right now.

  8. This is such a good quality article, but next week it will be three years old, and there have been no more feature articles since. What a pity! The world needs more of your good work!

    1. Thank you very much. I hope to pick up writing articles soon again. The last three years my time was mostly occupied by our now almost three year old daughter and a lot of professional photo work. Which meant my love for Foveon und thus this site were put on ice. With the little one now going to Kindergarten soon I hope I will have a bit more time to write 🙂

      1. Thank you Bob. Yes, I had a feeling that might be the cause, when I read in this very article that you were celebrating the impending arrival of your first born. 🙂 I hope you do indeed return to a situation with some time for this site, which is a mini-treasure.

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