Can someone please help!!

[rhyno214]

Hey all,

I just recently took and edited this portrait and am having a hard time with how I feel about it. I like it and think it is pretty good, but my wife and some others I have showed it to don't seem to like it too much. Maybe I am just sentimental about my art work, but could someone please explain if there is something technically wrong or weird about this pic?

Thank you so much for your help, this is only my 8th shoot, and I am still trying to learn as much as possible.

Ryan

Photo: Sign in - Google Accounts

 

[Granddad]

You need to post your photo, not provide a link. Most people here aren't going to open a random link from a relative stranger. Good luck!

 

[cherylynne1]

I clicked on the link anyway, and it just leads to an error message.

 

[DarkShadow]

I seriously doubt anyones going to sign into a google account to view a photo including me.Upload the picture or paste it using a hosting site of your choice.

 

[rhyno214]

I am so sorry about that, I tried 4 different times to upload the photo and it kept showing me a broken link. I just decided to sign up for a photobucket account and that seemed to work. I am so sorry once again!

a

 

[tirediron]

I quite like this image. I think it would benefit great from some delicate skin/texture work, and my preference would be for a little less tight a crop, but overall I think it's a good image.

 

[Designer]

I just recently took and edited this portrait and am having a hard time with how I feel about it. I like it and think it is pretty good, but my wife and some others I have showed it to don't seem to like it too much. Maybe I am just sentimental about my art work, but could someone please explain if there is something technically wrong or weird about this pic?

Awfully tight crop, which in this shot emphasizes her skin texture, so you're not doing your model any favors with that. The fact that her face is exposed properly (for an average photograph) and is framed by the darkness of her hair further emphasizes any flaw in her skin. Furthermore, the DOF is quite thin, making her neck and hair OOF, which further emphasizes your model's face.

My suggestions; try some glamor lighting, get the hair in focus, try some different poses, ease back on the sharpening, and open the frame more.

And don't be sentimental about your art work. If other people give you some negative feedback, take it to heart.

 

[KmH]

I too like the composition. If you did crop I don't think the crop is to tight.
An issue I have with the photo is the reflection in her iris' that make it impossible to see the pupils in her eyes, a common problem when only using ambient light.

However the biggest problem is the photo is under exposed based on a guide I have always used for portraits - facial highlight value in the red channel and if the whites of the subjects eyes (scelera) are gray or white. Properly exposed the red channel should have a value between 220 and 235 and the subjects eye white should not have a gray tone.

The brightest highlight I find is on the tip of here nose and is only 193 in the red channel, and her scelera have a distinct gray tone.

So I made some adjustments:
I used ACR to add 0.6 EV of exposure. Adding 0.6 EV brings that nose tip highlight up to 219.
In ACR's basic panel I added +22 of Clarity and +22 of Vibrance.
In the ACR Sharpening panel I set an Amount of 25, Radius of 1.0, Detail of 25, and zero for Masking. I set the Color noise reduction slider to 75.

Using Photoshop CC 2015:
I selected her scelera (whites of the eye) and desaturated them using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
I selected her lips and added +15 of Saturation using a second Hue/Saturation adjustment layer .

 

[rlemert]

My only problem with this is the shallow DOF. The eyes look spot on focus, but the chin and forehead (especially the eyebrows) look soft. I don't have a problem with the narrow DOF going back from the eyes, but I really prefer everything coming forward to be fairly sharp.

I also prefer the colors in the original. It may be a little dark, but the colors look more natural to me.

 

[rhyno214]

So, here is the original that I started with. I chose the crop that I did to get rid of the railing to the right of her head. This is only the third image I have ever tried to edit in photoshop, and I know I probably made a bunch of newbie mistakes.

The basic editing that I did was bring up the exposure, increase the contrast using a soft light b&w layer, curve layered her eyes and hair, brushed more exposure into the whites of her eyes, used frequency separation to get rid of a lot of imperfections, dodged and burned, and put on a warming filter to bring out her skin tone more. I also added some saturation to her lips and did a little with selective. The only modification I did was to make her jaw line slimmer because it was wayyyy too big in the perspective that I shot.

Thank you for all the feedback thus far, the reason I am so confused is that I haven't had any real photographers look at my work and it is hard to trust some of the sources for technique advice.

I look forward to hearing more comments! Thank you so much!

 

[vintagesnaps]

I agree the lens was too open and the depth of field too shallow (face and hair were not all in focus).

The exposure looks way off in the original (maybe WB too, she looks bluish-gray). Learn how to get proper exposures, then you can edit to enhance instead of having to fix mistakes.

Get out with just you and your camera so you can learn to get proper exposures in a variety of settings and lighting conditions before you try to do portraits. You need to learn how to use the tools of the trade properly before you can do photos for other people. It takes a lot of practice.

 

[rhyno214]

I am usually pretty good at exposure (I shoot a lot of film), this one was a quick, why not just try it picture that I took while she was sitting down in the shade. The bluish tint that is coming off of her skin is from the fact that all the light is reflecting off of the blue bridge in front of her. I had the WB set to auto because I didn't want to miss the moment and decided to change it in post. I know that it takes practice, and that is what this is. I don't charge for my photography (except for prints) and don't plan to until I become "good".