i wanted to do a bit more processing on the picture last night, but it was late by the time we got home and i was stuffed from a fantastic dinner and sleepy from the spanish wine, so i played around with it a bit more this morning.

last night’s image was pretty much out of the camera with some minor adjustments; it basically represented a “normal” shot. but what i had in mind when i took the shot was more desaturated, with a bit higher contrast. a little time in photoshop yielded this result.

this is actually a lot closer to what i was looking for. here are the two shots side by side:

as you can see the one on the right is desaturated, but not to the point of being a black & white. i also adjusted the contrast and sharpened the detail on the face a bit more, which i think compliments the ring flash effect nicely. i changed the focus a bit, as well, basically by blurring the whole picture slightly and then masking off the parts i wanted to keep sharp, which was face. you can see where it gets a bit blurry even on the neck. with a “real” ringlight, i probably could have used a longer lens with a wider aperture to get the same effect, but had to settle for doing it in post.