Picture in the Park - Clone Out Her Arm? C&C Please...

MikeBookPro

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Thoughts on this image? Wifey and I can't decide if it's worth cloning her left arm out or not. Something doesn't look exactly right, but I still like the photo itself. Thoughts?

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Well, for me, there is too much dead space on the left. Also, what is the green cast across her back and right elbow? It seems to begin under her left elbow, extends across her back and right elbow and then fades into the blue board on the right. Its the first thing I noticed.
 
Well, for me, there is too much dead space on the left. Also, what is the green cast across her back and right elbow? It seems to begin under her left elbow, extends across her back and right elbow and then fades into the blue board on the right. Its the first thing I noticed.

It's some of the grass I was standing in. I'm not sure if I love it or hate it, but I figured I'd just post the shot uncropped.
 
i like the dead space.. its a great use of the rule of thirds.. that left elbow is pretty odd though.. try cloning it out and showing us what it looks like
 
Just a disclaimer, cloning won't be enough in this situation. If you clone-out her left arm, you're also going to have to correct the image by adjusting her posture and the lighting on her back. I would use Liquify and some dodging and burning.

You may also want to try carefully liquifying her arm and pulling it in closer to her body a little. Right now it juts out pretty far; pulling it in a bit might be enough.
 
I like the image, but find the oof leaf and the unlevel framing somewhat distracting.

The green can be fixed in PS with a couple of Curves layers with layer masks to remove the green tint and to darken. That plus a modest rotation (plus some cloning to fill in the gaps on the edges) leaves a nice composition. An additional Vibrance layer with a small boost in Vibrance and a modest reduction in Saturation along with a Layer Mask to limit the effect to the skin tone also helps.

If you want to carry it further, a little retouching to the left elbow's darker area and some work on the odd wrinkles at the right wrist might be warranted.
 
The image of wifey on the ground is, well, not one I'm much interested in. Her hand is burned out, yet her hair and blouse are inky and devoid of texture. Her hairline looks purple,and I can see some evidence of posterization of tones on her right bicep from the vignetting. It looks really bad.

On the first image, I think there is too much dead space to the left, but what is *really* distracting is not her left arm (she does have two arms, right?), but the two small illumintaed bits that show up through the window shutters. There is an old design memory rule, "Light advances, dark recedes," and what the two spots of light do is advance out of the shadows,and really draw a serious amount of attention away from the wall, and away from wifey, and away from her eyes, which because they are the brightest thing related to her space, draw a lot of viewer attention. If you were to simply clone out the two distracting yellowish spots on the window shade slats, her eyes would really "pop",and the original photo would be much better.

Cloning out her entire left arm? I think that would make a very awkward pose, and it would look like she were humping the wall. As far as the OOF foreground grasses, that technique is very good if it is done with full commitment, but I think honestly you need more foreground foliage to make it look intentional,and to convey that feeling of looking past the foreground to the subject, in the way that so many Jaapanese photographers have done for so many decades; had you included a BUNCH of grasses, the effect would actually be more powerful and would tie the grasses on the house to the foreground grasses.

As for the horizontal composition of the original shot, I just don't think it works very well. I also think the original shot is excessively saturated,with inky hair and no detail visible in the back of her shirt EXCEPT at the bottom of the frame, where the green grass functons almost like,well,like a diffusion filter. Just as an aside, I think if you want to work in this genre, you might want to consider buying a couple of black net diffusion filters, and maybe a white diffusion filter as well. ANyway, back to the in-camera diffusion effect that the green grass provides--this is an example of how in-camera filters affect an image in ways that Photoshop does not; the diffusion of the green grass has spread some of the light,mgreen values INTO the blacks at the edge of the frame, and you can see that there *is* detail at the bottom portion of the back of her shirt. This effect happened organically, in the field, and again, is the type of effect that you could take advantage of by using some diffusion in-camera.
 
I agree with Dag on the first one... she's too far to the right, so crop some of the left to bring focus more directly on her. Her arm is fine. If you cloned it out, it would look odd.

Also agree on Derel's points on cloning out those light spots.

The second shot... has a lot of issues. Honestly, I'd scrap it. She's not in the frame enough... almost looks like you missed. The colors are off. Appears overexposed, etc.

First one has a LOT going for it. Just tweak and crop it a bit and you're good.
 
I like it. I don't find the arm to be an issue as she's bracing herself against the wall. You corrected the spots of light, which I did find distracting. I can still see the green but it is greatly improved. What I really like are the eyes, you captured them well. Bear in mind not all problems can be fixed in Photoshop, I'd simply suggest a re-shoot if this is an image you really want to pursue. Take the pointers given here and apply them. I'm sure you already know, but great images are made in the viewfinder, not in Photoshop.

Beautiful Wife/Model by the way!
 
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I like it. I don't find the arm to be an issue as she's bracing herself against the wall. You corrected the spots of light, which I did find distracting. I can still see the green but it is greatly improved. What I really like are the eyes, you captured them well. Bear in mind not all problems can be fixed in Photoshop, I'd simply suggest a re-shoot if this is an image you really want to pursue. Take the pointers given here and apply them. I'm sure you already know, but great images are made in the viewfinder, not in Photoshop.

Beautiful Wife/Model by the way!

Thank you! We're probably going to head back over there tomorrow. Try to hit the same time of day, same clothes, etc. I love the shot, and I want to get it right. I'm even going to bring my ghetto, home-brew diffusion panel + stands set-up (which I didn't have when I took this shot).
 
This is a nice shot and the last edit is much better than the original. Good luck with your second shoot. :)
 
Still say you need to crop more.

Also, I just noticed... no (or perhaps very little) highlights in her eyes. Pop off a small diffused flash for the shot. Her eyes are too dead without the highlights. I almost suspect you DID this, but that it's just not that noticable in this shot for some reason.

Also, I think I might give it a bit of a sharpening pass. Nothing too serious. Just a bit.

Still, looks good.
 

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