Working on portraits...

Quok1mb0 · Feb 28, 2007

Working on my portraits and was wondering how these are? focus good? good composition? good lighting? what you think? critiques welcomed and encouraged please!!!

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6.

The top ones are the original - and I did these before EOS JD told me some stuff now I am going to play!

Thank you much!

The_Traveler · Mar 1, 2007

IMO, these are really, really good.
Composition, focus, DOF and color are all excellent.
The weakest I think are numbers 3 and 4

Minor nits
I think 1 could be a lttle brighter and 5 needs cropping off the top.
Personal prefernce, your logo is overlarge and way distracting. It makes the images look too much like product ads.

Quok1mb0 · Mar 1, 2007

thank you much normally i dont put any logo or anything on them I was just messing around with it LoL

but again thank you been working hard to try to get my portraits up to par LoL

ShootHoops · Mar 1, 2007

Everything looks good to me. :thumbup: Nice series.

NYBrit · Mar 1, 2007

Great photos, great poses. Your model is certainly expressive!

oCyrus55 · Mar 1, 2007

I think you could do some curve adjustments to make them stand out a little but more and maybe some skin touch up too. Also, in the first shot, her right eye is in focus, but I think it would look better if her left one was in focus (just because it wouldnt draw attention to the center of the frame).

But they do look fine and your lighting looks nice and soft.

oCyrus55 · Mar 1, 2007

here is a quick edit, if I have more time this weekend I will put more time into it. Let me know if you like it!

EOS_JD · Mar 1, 2007

I have some comments on these.

None to me looked very sharp however they can be salvaged. They also lack contrast - check your histogram and drag the outside slider in until they touch the black edges of the histogram. You can move in a little more than the extreme edges if it looks better. What you are doing is making the muddy blacks pure ba=lack and the light greys white.

Wonderig why your images were not very sharp? Are they RAW images straight from the camera?

Here's some edits. Hope you like them. Remember USM is your friend (unsharpen mask).

On the closer images open up the aperture a little. The out of focus eyes are a distraction. If you want the dof shallow I'd be more extreme with this.

1. Your image was a little dark (underexposed) and wasn't very sharp. Levels teak and sharpening. I also sharpened the eues on a separate layer.

2. Again your image wasn't sharp. Sharpening applied.

3. Underexposed and not very sharp again sharpened and tweaked the layers.

4. Again it didn't look sharp. Same edits as above.

5. The near eye might have looked better if it was sharper though I love this image. Some edits to sharpen and tweak levels.

6. Again not very sharp so I sharpened and tweaked the levels.

Hope you didn't mind the edits.

Regards
Jim

Quok1mb0 · Mar 1, 2007

hell no i dont mind those edits! those are awesome!!! can you send me a PSD? so i can see how exactly you like sharpened the eyes on a separate layer? did you like use the lasso tool at a feather? or what? just curious...i love the edits! Unsharpen mask?? I must play with and I am going to go do some more toying in PS now LoL

thanks to everyone who said nice things about my photos also!

I love this edit!!

OK here are my re edits for like the third time LoL

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What do you think?

milkofglass · Mar 2, 2007

not really a comment refering to your series above, just in general while shooting cooperative models: To prevent a model from looking like they are posing, have them be in motion while you're taking the picture.

I guess what I mean is people look better while moving in a still frame (that makes sense right?). If you want your model to "pose" like in #7, have her start slightly bent and looking down, and then move into the pose. Once her eye hits the camera you can snap the shot, catching her in a moving pose.

This does a few things:
A) Hair catches light much better when the light can move between it. That only happens when the hair is in motion, not while sitting flat because your model was in the same pose for a few seconds.
B) The expression on your model looks more genuin. It looks original and not posed, because she actually made the expression, and didn't pose it for whatever period of time.

This is one of the reasons why runway models don't stand still for very long, and you see them always moving, only posing for a few seconds, and then switching poses / position.

Hope this helps you in the future.