green filters for portraits

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last weekend i was taking some photos of my girlfriend's niece and nephew--none of which turned out really well because the kids are little monsters.

BUT i had with me a friend's daughter, who's 10-going-on-25, and whom i used to nanny. mainly on a whim and out of frustration i did some bust-type shots of her with a dark green filter. WOW! one of the shots is just incredible. the skin tone is really nice, and her freckles look really cute. but what's most impressive is her eyes: they're really bright white and aren't going to require a reprint with the dreaded eye-dodging or spot-bleaching on the print. her eyes have that really bright avedon look, which i think is just fantastic.

i'd heard of using a green filter for improved skin tones, but never to improve the contrast between face and eyes. has anyone else used this technique? what about a blue filter for the same result?

-- brad daly (bwdaly@hiwaay.net), March 12, 2000

Answers

Brad- there is an example of this in the latest issue of W magazine. Look for the AKRIS ad shot by Steven Klein. The shot and campaign was all done using a green filter.

-- jim megargee (mvjim@interport.net), March 14, 2000.

Jim,

Is that the March issue of W?

Thanks,

chris

-- Christian Harkness (chris.harkness@eudoramail.com), March 18, 2000.


Chris, I believe so. Repro of the ad is quite bad (at least in the issue we have) but it does give a general idea of the results from using a green filter. But if you can find the issue from last year (month?) that featured the artical on Brad Pitt (also shot by Klein) the repros are much finer.

-- jim megargee (mvjim@interport.net), March 19, 2000.

Red tends to flatter skin because any blemishes are rendered whiter in black and white while green tends to render any redish blemishes darker due to the absorbsion of red by the green filter. Your friends niece had freckles that became more pronounced with the green filter. What color were her eyes? Green or Blue? In some portraiture men are photographed with a green filter to get a more swarthy or rugged appearance. Old Hollywood trick. Think Lee Marvin in "Who Killed Liberty Valence?" James

-- james (james_mickelson@hotmail.com), March 19, 2000.

Jim, many thanks. Wasn't the Brad Pitt piece in color though?

chris

-- Christian Harkness (chris.harkness@eudoramail.com), March 20, 2000.



For anybody having Photoshop you can see the same effect on any image by viewing the pic in the 'colour channels'. Toy around with different eye colours etc to see the difference. For a comparison of a 'straight' bw pic use the 'desaturate' function. Bri.

-- Brian Thomas (brit@bwphoto.freeserve.co.uk), April 05, 2000.

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