A good tip for a lot of the edits in this thread is to be careful of using 100% black. Frequently it results in a muddy look when printing. Better to raise the black point by like 2 points and then add some very subtle noise. Same goes for pure white. Darken it by a couple points and add noise. I like running the add noise filter (monochromatic/Gaussian) on a 50% grey layer set to soft light for making noise.
>>3282746The first thing my eye goes to is the banding of saturation where midtones transition to shadows on his face. Like at the edge of the cast shadow from his hat. You can attach a saturation mask to a hue/sat layer to pull back the most saturated areas. Here's what the saturation mask of your image looks like now. White areas are most saturated, black is desaturated. See the banding? It's natural to have a small amount of saturation banding at the transition of midtone to shadow, but it shouldn't be that intense. The saturation of the colors on his palette are also drawing my eye.
>>3282610I like the d&b on his face, nicely done. The crop combined with black of the background is a bit ominous and oppressive, like it's about to swallow him up. I like what you did with the color as opposed to your first edit, where the color was a bit loud.
>>3282628The highlights on his face are a unnaturally bright compared with the darkness of the midtones and shadows. Stands out a bit, looking digitally altered. The cool color toning elicits a melancholy mood imo, was that your intent?
