Correction Help?

[OneTruthRemains]

Hey, I just did my first 2 shoots on my Nikon D5000. Both were families that were friends, so it was just for experience. My second shoot turned out pretty good, but I saw when I got home that my first shoot had a problem with overexposed skies through the trees in the background. I haven't edited these pictures at all because I want to get the sky right first. I have been on Google for hours, but none of the things I found help much.. Any help is greatly appreciated. Oh, and I'm using GIMP.

 

[KmH]

That is not an easy fix, post process.

The best way to address the issue is setting up the shot before the shutter gets released.

When people ar backlit, like the family shot, if you use strobed light (flash) you can use shutter speed to control the exposure of the sky (ambient light), and lens aperture to control the exposure of the of the family (strobed light).

You could have shot #1 as a horizontal frame, with no sky in the background.

His head is in direct sunlight and has a very hot spot on it, plus his face is quite dark, particularly the dark 'raccoon eyes' effect. He should have held the baby with her front towards the camera so she didn't have to turn her head so hard to see the camera.

 

[JimCoventry]

I took liberty of editing your image in Photoshop. Would have been easier in Lightroom with an original RAW file and I still have the layers to show what I did but take a look before and after. You really need to learn these post processing applications. It is not hard.

 

[KmH]

I used Photoshop and Camera Raw;

 

[lyonsroar]

^I don't like that edit. Sorry. They look kinda like zombies...especially the grandma on the end...

 

[KmH]

Not a problem. I didn't have a very good photo to work with. The edit illustrates what I mentioned in my critique - horizontal framing, more light in their faces, and the fact that trying to fix photos post process doesn't always work real well and getting it right in the camera is preferable.

 

[OneTruthRemains]

I appreciate your suggestions, and after seeing these on the first day, i did things much differently on the shoot the next day, which turned out much better. Jim, I would like to know the steps you took on that one. I do know some about PP, and have played with all these pictures on my own, I put them up here un-edited to get an opinion of the original. I was able to get results like yours on the first pic, but not quite as blue in the sky. The second one, I may just give up on, I have plenty of different shots in different situations from this family, so I can use those. This was my first shoot with a "real" camera, and I learned a lot about how to get it right in camera, and I've been learning a lot through editing as well. So, I am thankful for the help, I have a lot to learn. Others from the same shoot with some (vintage-like) processing: