Please open a big version of the image here and have a good zoom in.
A few days ago I got a new toy, a Wacom tablet and decided to best see what I can do with it, is to revisit an old self portrait and do it all over again with the Wacom. Then I would rule out possible improvements in photography, and only be testing out the Wacom and my Photoshop skills. I'm actually really enjoying the photoshop process, which is basically skin retouching, and adding highlights and shadows, because I now have the tablet to help me out.
I chose a portrait that I shot in April 24th of 2018, with the Nikon D7200 and Sigma Art 18-35mm f/1.8, at 35mm, ISO 250, 1/60 sec and f/1.8.
It's one of my favourite self portraits, which is probably quite surprising. It's not fancy, there is no smoke and mirrors, no thick mask of makeup, no cool outfit, no showing off my best assets, aka my body, and quite frankly, I look a bit mental, but there is just something that I really like about it. It's quite raw and the tones and light have me thinking of the old Dutch painters, I am a classicist after all.
On the left is the original image, only converted from raw to jpeg, the centre one is the first edit, and the right one I did today. It took me something like two hours to finish, because I was really paying attention to details and also trying to find all the hidden imperfections that might show up when viewed on a different screen. Overall, I see a fair bit of improvement, it's not perfect, but a lot more refined, smoother but still looks like I am a real person. I decided to make it a tiny bit different colour, and not as saturated, and I think it worked pretty nicely.
Ps. I saw my own images on a PC (I use a MacBook Pro and iPhone 8) maybe for the first time yesterday, and I'm shocked how dreadful they look compared to my own screen. fml.
