Photos by RogerRoger

Looks like everything changed when the fire nation attacked again.
On the plus side, the "Winner Within" forums theme update looking snazzy.

Lot has changed for me too. I completed my first two photoshoots as a photographer last weekend. Here's the first photo fully edited. If you're around Chicago in the next month or so, let me know. Doing TFP shoots (for now, definitely time-limited) to build up my portfolio.

Finished editing the second photo. Had fun in photoshop as you can see.

Still learning editing so if you have any constructive criticisms, shoot your shot. Converted images to 1/4 original size and 80% quality so they (hopefully) all fit the forum upload limit this time.

What's your goal with photography? Do you want to join the club of dating profile photographers?

RogerRoger said:

Still learning editing so if you have any constructive criticisms, shoot your shot.

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Well, firstly, why did you export in PNG? It's an extremely inefficient format for photos.

About your edits, I would advise you to not overdo it. It's a common newbie mistake to overedit the pics (especially abusing the vibrance & saturation sliders) to the point of them looking unnatural as fuck.

Another thing I wish I knew years ago was how to use the tone curve, which is a great tool that I never used till I learned how to color grade videos. A slight "S" curve can make a big improvement to most images, and it offers a better control than the general sliders for contrast/highlights/shadows.

My last piece of advice is to always be mindful of the lighting and have your subject properly lit, because you can't always fix a bad lighting in post without making the pic look weird/unnatural.

Lord Rey said:

What's your goal with photography? Do you want to join the club of dating profile photographers?

Click to expand...

More of interested in IG high-end fashion photography. As a side hustle and to build up a high caliber social circle (men + women). The first photoshoot I did was with a female model and it was fun -- almost felt like a practice date. One of the models I dated a few years ago (crazy hot but even more so insanely high maintenance) ended up settling down with her photographer, so also slightly interested in "warm" approaches there -- but more so social circle game really.

Lord Rey said:

Well, firstly, why did you export in PNG? It's an extremely inefficient format for photos.

Click to expand...

Interesting question. Let me start by asking how you would export the images? I really appreciate your helpful suggestions below, and I'm super keen to hear what you'd recommend.

Back to answering your question: to be completely honest, the main reason I choose PNG is because it was the default choice on photoshop....

Secondarily, I'm used to manipulating PNGs in Python. It looks like Photoshop only allows exporting to PNG, JPG, and GIF. JPG uses lossy compression so I avoid it (but for the forums I guess it's just as good). Also can save as TIF but that generated a 300 MB file (vs the PNGs are around 30 MB) and it does not seem like it's as easy to manipulate TIFs in Python. I tried saving as WBMP but the preview at least looked really messed up. And printing to PDF cut off his head...

Lord Rey said:

About your edits, I would advise you to not overdo it. It's a common newbie mistake to overedit the pics (especially abusing the vibrance & saturation sliders) to the point of them looking unnatural as fuck.

Another thing I wish I knew years ago was how to use the tone curve, which is a great tool that I never used till I learned how to color grade videos. A slight "S" curve can make a big improvement to most images, and it offers a better control than the general sliders for contrast/highlights/shadows.

My last piece of advice is to always be mindful of the lighting and have your subject properly lit, because you can't always fix a bad lighting in post without making the pic look weird/unnatural.

Click to expand...

Awesome advice on the "S" for the tone curve mate!! I had exactly that unfortunate situation of not ideal lighting overall (well, it did really light up his abs but otherwise was rather overexposed). I didn't have this in my top selected but the model selected it to be edited and I guess the client is always right ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Attaching all 14 versions from my editing today. Curious if you (or anyone) have a preferred version -- or if you all think they're ~the same...

Note that I attached both a JPG and PNG for v14. I don't actually notice any difference. All the PNGs I downscaled by 4x and at 80% quality to make them smaller for the forums here (I don't visually notice a difference with the originals). The JPG I exported with the highest quality but looks about the same as the PNGs to me.

RogerRoger said:

Let me start by asking how you would export the images?

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JPEG is the obvious answer when the export is final (and not meant to be imported in another editing software, in that case you would prefer lossless formats like TIF). Yeah it's a lossy format, but that's the point of JPEG, keeping less data than lossless formats with minimal to none visual impact (depending on the compression scale). I don't use Adobe softwares so I'm not sure how export parameters look like in Photoshop/Lightroom, but usually you have a percentage scale for the JPEG quality. I usually use 95, or 98 if I want no visible loss (even at the pixel level).

RogerRoger said:

Awesome advice on the "S" for the tone curve mate!!

Click to expand...

Yeah, that gives instantly more volume to any pic that looks too flat.

RogerRoger said:

Attaching all 14 versions from my editing today. Curious if you (or anyone) have a preferred version -- or if you all think they're ~the same...

Click to expand...

After a quick look, I'd say 12 looks the best. But you need to remove those tissues on the ground haha.

Cheers mate, don't know how I missed those tissues. I've edited another 5 photos, 2 left to go for this dude and 5-10 to edit for the chick. I have 2 photoshoots lined up for next week so time to get these ones wrapped up soon.

I guess I'll also use this as my regular log. Sort of surprisingly, I didn't lose any money in July, despite crypto being down when I did my monthly net worth check, and I don't think I made that much last month - but also spent minimally.

My #1 goal this week is to finish editing photos.

August Goals
1. Fitness: walk/run 26.2 miles (12 miles completed so far)
2. Finances: net green (make more than I spend)
3. Photography: Complete phlearn 30 days of photoshop

2024 Goals
1. Complete 10+ photoshoots and edit 100+ photos.

Daily Streaks: all 2 days
Male Multi-vitamin
Tinder
Bumble
The League
5 minute sit tall posture
10 pushups

===
I have a million goals and things I'd like to do, but I'm going to try to limit myself to only stating above as a time-limited goal for what has become a persistent dream or even NEED.

Yesterday I was daydreaming about having a hooters waitress / swimsuit model gf. That could make a good goal, or it could just be a distraction. I'll only know after I reflect further.

I'd also like to add pushups, squats, planks, etc. to goals for the month / year, but I know I tend to overload myself. One step at a time.

Definitely my favorite photo of the whole shoot. Looked great untouched imo. Before and after attached.

My observation so far is that you're over-editing.

This guy already has a try hard archetype that is going to make most girls think "tool" and any editing is going to amplify that.

When a layperson looks at a photo, they shouldn't be able to tell that it's been edited.

Stick with something close to the before.

pancakemouse said:

My observation so far is that you're over-editing.

This guy already has a try hard archetype that is going to make most girls think "tool" and any editing is going to amplify that.

When a layperson looks at a photo, they shouldn't be able to tell that it's been edited.

Stick with something close to the before.

Click to expand...

I can confirm that! When I started with photography, I got caught up in the obsession of editing. Now I only make very minimal changes that hardly anyone sees.

The pictures that I get by far the best feedback on were taken with a 35 year old analog point and shoot camera and a roll of Kodak Gold 200 (my profile pic for example).

Halfway attractive person, well dressed, correct pose, good background >>>> best editing skills.

I would also make sure that the people don't pose in such an extremely hardcore tryhard way, that looks extremely cringe on the viewer. Less is usually more in this case.

Welcome back legend @RogerRoger

RogerRoger said:

Definitely my favorite photo of the whole shoot. Looked great untouched imo. Before and after attached.

Click to expand...

I personally don't find the edited picture very good. It almost borders on a cartoonlike appearance and it's easy to tell that it's been heavily edited. I'm also curious as to why is the dude's left ear cut off. Also the composition is in my opinion really off when you consider the background and the way the building slightly arches.

Cheers @MakingAComeback, appreciate the welcome back to your forums, king
Appreciate the feedback everyone (especially regarding the cutoff ear...fixed that).

Today's photo is pretty minimally edited. Just toned him down a tad, high pass filter, and brightened the eyes. Tried coloring his eyes a bit too, but I didn't keep that edit.

That's my 10th photo edited. Tomorrow I'll try to bang out that chick all the way -- which were mostly silhouette shots so I don't think there will be as much to worry about. I do want to try some rather more artistic edits like Andy's 365 project, still a lot to earn there.

Daily Streaks: all 3 days
Male Multi-vitamin
5 minute sit tall posture
10 pushups
Tinder
Bumble
The League

Ran sprints after my posture work twice today, felt heavenly. Did 21 pushups today. Eventual goal is 100 consecutive pushups. I still have some shoulder issues from 1k in one day so I'm planning on scaling that slower this time.

Almost done with my first week of controlled fap (1 day off complete, 2 days off complete, tonight is day 3/3 off). Lot more energy during the day.

Main distraction / new goal thought today was about setting up a new crypto trading bot.

Made $150 in 2 hours today (not photo related). My previous best was $160 in 4 hours. Next step $100/hr and $400/day.

Pretty minor edits for this one. Think I prefer v2 over v3. Feels awkward she went no bra but I guess it's artistic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Attaching the before and after from photo #4 edited from this shoot (#2 and #3 the composition were meh) as well as the inspiration. Next time I'll aim for grabbing more of the skyline.

I don’t think photoshop is the best tool for what you’re doing. Use Lightroom for editing colours/contrast etc. Photoshop is really used for image composition/drawing etc.

The big benefit of Lightroom is batch process. Figure out the “right settings” and then batch apply to a bunch of photos. Even stuff like a high pass filter, you can achieve the same thing in Lightroom by using sharpening and masking and then just apply that to a set of photos.

The v1/2/3 of the girl to me are all so similar they might as well be the same.

Adrizzle said:

I don’t think photoshop is the best tool for what you’re doing. Use Lightroom for editing colours/contrast etc. Photoshop is really used for image composition/drawing etc.

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Cheers mate! I'll definitely give Lightroom a look for round 1 and non-artistic editing. I actually do want to do more drawing / adding effects with Photoshop but it definitely sounds like Lightroom would be great for cutting down some of the repetitive processes I've started building up.

Dope pfp btw.

I just had my weekly coaching call with Andy. Here's my recollections of his feedback:

- most of the photos I showed him would benefit from more bokeh
-> shorter f-stop and more distance between the subject and the background

- if the composition is meh (bench in foreground, lots of stuff in background), then adding a lens blur in photoshop might help, but otherwise spend more time making good photos awesome than working on salvaging okay phots.
-> adding a gradient to the blur improves the realism.

- over-fixing is super common. Set opacity to 60-80% for pretty much every new layer.

===
I've now edited 15 photos total, so I'm technically done with my obligations. I'm not totally happy with this photo (the lighting is dimmer at the light and brighter at the bottom -- whereas it should be the opposite. Andy helped me realize it's because the blur I was applying was eliminating more light where the cone was smaller) so I might take a new attempt on it tomorrow.

I have one new photoshoot lined up for Monday, unconfirmed one next Friday, and one other maybe in the mix.

Daily Streaks:
4 days
Male Multi-vitamin
5 minute sit tall posture
10 pushups
Tinder
Bumble
The League
Consume 1-4 servings veggies (today = 2 -> green beans + olives)

1 day
Floss
2k+ Calories (2415)
100+g Protein (106)

New goal for the week == crypto trading bot. Got an API key set up with coinbase, pip installed the official sdk, going through the docs now.

Made it through 3/3 days no fap -- woke up horny as fuck today though. Good motivation for this weekend.

Earned $0 today.

Met up with Akilles7 last Friday. Chill dude, showed me around the nightlife of Chicago. We're tentatively meeting up tomorrow night for photos at the Art Institute.

Girl on Monday rescheduled, dude for Friday morning hasn't got back to me in a week, but I'm traveling for two weeks so not the worst. I'll be taking pics daily Aug 21st - 31st and I tentatively have two more shoots lined up the first week of September.

No new photos to show, but I am planning on revising several of the photos I posted earlier to improve them.

My crypto market analysis so far suggests hodling is better than the strat I had in mind. Going to finish up automating my limit buys then create a youtube video. This past week I made around 10 youtube videos on coding. Need to work on a flashy intro and generally improving the quality.

Ran two miles today, and I've ran+walked 31 miles in the past 15 days. Goal is to hit 50 miles in 30 days by the end of September (if not this month) and then 100 miles in 30 days the month after.

Planning a trip to Cancun in January with one of my best buds from MS-HS. He's never been outside the country so I'm super looking forward to making sure he has a good time. Hoping h

TODO: re-sort the below to chronological order.


10 days
8 days
1+ days

Busy busy day. Four work meetings + Andy coaching call. Power went out at my apartment -- we had no waste management for three weeks, then no wifi for three days, now no electricity, pretty bad. Def want to move.

After my call with Andy, met up with Akilles7 at the art institute, for photos and enjoying the art. Jam-packed day tomorrow but I'll be gold-mining Saturday. I don't think any of them will be ideal for his OLD profiles but maybe something IG-worthy, we'll see. We did take a couple of pretty fun photos I'm looking forward to editing.

Met up with a friend from IN afterwards, walked along the river walk and got a glass of wine.

Walked 6ish miles today. Going for a run tomorrow morning and going out tomorrow night plus the usual.

I started sorting my Daily Streaks in my offline journal, added a few additional which I'll update here another time. I'm up to around 40/100 items tracked.

11 days
The League
Tinder
Bumble
Male Multi-vitamin
5 minute sit tall posture
10 pushups
Consume 1-4 servings veggies (today = 2 -> green beans + olives)

9 days
Floss
2k+ Calories
100+g Protein
Floss x2

3+ days
Wear bite guard to bed
Mouth Wash Morning
Mouth Wash Night
2nd face wash / shower
2nd 5m posture (12p - 4p)
3rd 5m posture (4p - 8p)
4th 5m posture (8p - 12a)
Make Bed
Brush Teeth Morning
Brush Teeth Night
Brush Hair
Toner Morning
Toner Night
Serum Morning
Serum Night
Face Moisturize Morning
Face Moisturize Night

2+ days
Post Daily Streaks + Reflection on KYIL
Post Daily Streaks + Reflection on Discord
Post Daily Streaks + Reflection on FB
Differin Gel Night
Shower Morning
Pay Credit Cards
Check/Apply for Wyzant Jobs
No Anime (before 10p except Sundays)
Learn Photography (e.g., Phlearn Video)

Reflection
Busy busy day. Walked/ran/danced 10.75 miles today. Friend visiting Chiraq from IN. Ran to Margaret beach and then we walked :*( [thought we were going to jog] all the way up to the riverwalk. Went on an architecture bus tour. Had a meeting at 3pm ($60/hr will become $90/hr in a few weeks).

Found out my car got broken into. They busted the driver's side window, which is stupid af b/c the only thing I really noticed is they opened my glove compartment -- and they opened a fucking empty case of sunglasses. So I spent like an hour cleaning up the broken glass outside the car and as much on the driver's seat as I could before I drove it to a garage, which I was going to do anyway today (was going to get it washed first tho RIP) since I'm traveling the next two weeks. Still cut myself like three times after all that cleanup (super minor cuts tho no biggie).

SO main takeaway, which I already knew but solidified: fuck south loop. I also should've sold my car as soon as I got to Chiraq and bought a junker. And/or should've paid the piper for garage parking. It's way too nice a car for street parking. I bought it for cash so it's already a sunk cost. I'm honestly so sad I thought about just junking it instead of fixing it to sell it. Especially since before I found my car like this (they also scratched the door (( ) I was thinking of extending my lease 1-2 months. But what's done is done. I'll just have to get it repaired when I get back -and then fucking sell my beautiful, beautiful car, I hate to see it go thru this shit.

Just wanted to giveup after that (and I was exhausted from the day) but I rallied and went out to Old Town (kudos Akilles7 for showing me around last week). Went to The Vig, then Benchmark (which was awesome, two girls who were friends were pretty into the approach, although I had disqualified from the ~start as a warmup RIP). Showed my friend around there and he loved it. Went to four different spots. The dive bar we went to third was 90% dudes lol. My friend's style was ideal prior to 9pm or so and mine was fine until 10pm or so. Wore my new pair of Balencis, black distressed/ripped jeans, and a black athletic-style dress shirt untucked (friend was wearing a white polo... plus blue jeans).

Pretty fun night overall. I dipped at 11p, flight early-ish tm.

Further refined my Daily Streaks today on paper, not fully reflected here yet:

Daily Streaks

12 days
The League
Tinder
Bumble
Male Multi-vitamin
5 minute sit tall posture
10 pushups
Consume 1-4 servings veggies (today = 2 -> green beans + olives)

10 days
Floss
2k+ Calories
100+g Protein
Floss x2

4+ days
Wear bite guard to bed
Mouth Wash Morning
Mouth Wash Night
2nd face wash / shower
2nd 5m posture (12p - 4p)
3rd 5m posture (4p - 8p)
4th 5m posture (8p - 12a)
Make Bed
Brush Teeth Morning
Brush Teeth Night
Brush Hair
Toner Morning
Toner Night
Serum Morning
Serum Night
Face Moisturize Morning
Face Moisturize Night

3+ days
Post Daily Streaks + Reflection on KYIL
Post Daily Streaks + Reflection on Discord
Post Daily Streaks + Reflection on FB
Differin Gel Night
Shower Morning
Pay Credit Cards
Check/Apply for Wyzant Jobs
No Anime (before 10p except Sundays)
Learn Photography (e.g., Phlearn Video)