Need Help with a Title and Critique Please.

[zendianah]

My baby is almost 2..

Any tips on what I need to work on ? Is this just a horrible pic? Are the eyes creepy?

 

[TBaraki]

The only thing I don't like in the photo is the softness/camera shake.

 

[zendianah]

Thank you for your comment. Im working on that .. How about the post processing?

 

[Heck]

I like the tone of the photo, Its good I like it

 

[sayambhu]

you have a fantastic portrait ! did you retouch the eyes in PS ? they are definitely not "creepy", rather very much different and well defined. they have excellent depth and reflective colors.

you know, whenever I see great pictures such as these (one of my colleagues got some good portraits like you on his last expedition to afghanistan), I yearn for B&W versions. many want to stick onto the original skin tone and that's perfectly sensible, but do you mind if I asked you for a B&W version of this photograph ?

greetings

PS : you have a sweeeeeet baby !

 

[Nein-reis]

Great photo, just warmed it up a little and sharpened it. Nice job.

 

[sayambhu]

Great photo, just warmed it up a little and sharpened it. Nice job.

the green in the eyes is looking a bit unnatural now. should we lasso the eyes and drop the green saturation from it to some extent ?

 

[zendianah]

Heres the B&W Version. Im not very good at B&W anyone wanna play with the pic can play with it..

 

[mwct]

I like the photo. Its sharper than the great majority of my photos but anyway I think a little softness isn't that bad. Since you gave permission to play with the pic, I'll just slap on a few filters and if anything comes out nicely, I post again

Edit: Okay I've played with it. I did a plugin called midnight sepia which I do to all my portraits (its free, and I love the effect), but in this case I wasn't 100% sure if it was better or not. You might want to check it out though, and also, Optikverve labs has a whole bunch of b&w filters so you don't have to do them yourself: http://www.optikvervelabs.com/

Oh and midnight sepia is at: http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm#Image_Enhancements

 

[carolineruth12]

Cute! I agree it's a little soft, but i love the expression and the eyes.

 

[zendianah]

I like the photo. Its sharper than the great majority of my photos but anyway I think a little softness isn't that bad. Since you gave permission to play with the pic, I'll just slap on a few filters and if anything comes out nicely, I post again

Edit: Okay I've played with it. I did a plugin called midnight sepia which I do to all my portraits (its free, and I love the effect), but in this case I wasn't 100% sure if it was better or not. You might want to check it out though, and also, Optikverve labs has a whole bunch of b&w filters so you don't have to do them yourself: http://www.optikvervelabs.com/

Oh and midnight sepia is at: http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm#Image_Enhancements

Thank you for that !! I would like to see your B&W version. Stupid question. How do I use it as a plugin ? Do I save it in my plugins folder?

 

[mwct]

Okay I'll have to post the edits a little later cos I am going out to lunch with a friend. For the Midnight Sepia, its an action, so what you do is to save the file under the presets folder of adobe photoshop, or come to think of it you can save it anywhere you want provided you remember where you put it. Then under the window menu, make sure you have the actions window active. Once you have that window you will see a little button to the top right of the actions window where you can load the action you want (in this case Midnight sepia). You will now see the action listed along with all the other actions that photoshop loads by default. You can select the action, and then expand it by pressing the little twiddle and then just press the play button at the bottom. It will apply the action and open it as a new copy (your original image in this case is untouched, other actions you may use will modify the original image though). Sounds complicated but it really isn't.

 

[zendianah]

Okay I'll have to post the edits a little later cos I am going out to lunch with a friend. For the Midnight Sepia, its an action, so what you do is to save the file under the presets folder of adobe photoshop, or come to think of it you can save it anywhere you want provided you remember where you put it. Then under the window menu, make sure you have the actions window active. Once you have that window you will see a little button to the top right of the actions window where you can load the action you want (in this case Midnight sepia). You will now see the action listed along with all the other actions that photoshop loads by default. You can select the action, and then expand it by pressing the little twiddle and then just press the play button at the bottom. It will apply the action and open it as a new copy (your original image in this case is untouched, other actions you may use will modify the original image though). Sounds complicated but it really isn't.

Awesome !! Thank you for that in depth explanation. I copied this and I will try it on Monday. !!

 

[heip]

Hi,
I sharpened the eyes three times & then softened the rest of the pic to give it an even softness instead of a blur look, then saturated it a bit.

Nice shot, very angelic eyes.

 

[zendianah]

Hi,
I sharpened the eyes three times & then softened the rest of the pic to give it an even softness instead of a blur look, then saturated it a bit.

Nice shot, very angelic eyes.

How did you soften the image without making it look blurry? Did you gausian blur the edge sharpen?