I saw this first on a monitor with high contrast and a reduced gamut, and saw the coarseness you refer to, but I don't see it on my calibrated screen (17" MacBook pro).
Interesting take on the theme, going for the sharp contrast over soft. Regards, -Najinsky
I do really like the look to the shot. The high contrast style works well here. It doesn't look gritty or coarse here. I can check on another screen and get back to you.
Thanks Nico. I was quite pleased with this at first, but when I saw it on my monitor at work it had a sort of coarse look that I don't like and I was thinking about deleting it. I suppose I'll leave it in place to make up the numbers.
It's shot in raw and has had the contrast boosted with some Unsharp Mask at a radius of 50 pixels, 20%. Then I just used levels, moving the white and black points in until the highlights were a bit blown and the shadows a bit blocked up. Finally a bit of localised dodging and burning. Regards, Michael
Well done, Michael. I have to confess I have no idea how to achieve this "look". Any tips? Do you shoot over-exposed? Or is is all the post-work? Would love to learn from you about this effect. Regards Nico