A photography question
 

For all you pros on the forum, I have a question. I had a photo shoot with a friend the other day and I'm debating with myself over just a little thing. The shot looks great, but when I sharpen it it still looks great only different. I'm just curious which you guys think is better. The difference is very subtle, but can make a big difference.

Soft (Original)
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/6...softdp7.th.jpg

Sharpened (Edited)
http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/9...harpjz7.th.jpg

Lovely girl! Nice pictures.

There are positives and negatives to both:
Soft image:
+ The background is more blurry - useful if you want to simulate a narrower depth of field than what your camera lens is capable of
+ With a backlit shot like this, you get a more ethereal or ghostly effect which would be destroyed by sharpening it.
- The model is less detailed - see eyes and fingers

Sharp image:
+ Model very nicely detailed
- Background sharp too.

One experiment you can try is take the soft image and sharpen just the eyes. Most human beings when looking at people are drawn to eyes first and then to other bits of the body (unless of course we are talking about Pamela Anderson ;) ).

So just sharpening the eyes might do the trick.

The other possibility is to select the whole girl and do a very mild sharpening and then do a further sharpening of the eyes.

But this what I like about photography - its an art more than a science. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What could appeal to you may not appeal to me. Keep shooting - your work is good! Good choice of models too :D

I think this tutorial might help with the look your going for.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/...d.php?t=277390

Like sameer said i think the thing to do is sharpen the eyes more than the rest. Nice pictures by the way.

I like the sharpened one better, but i'm no photo specialist.

V. Cool link - Thanks!

Cool thanks for the advice

It's not black and white. The "sharpen" effect seems different on a different picture.
On this one though, sharp for me!