Did my portraits!

Bryant · Oct 19, 2008

Well, I was here asking earlier about portraits and now I come with a couple of images from the shoot. These have been minimally ps'd, only a small amount of skin smoothing and I brought out the eyes a bit, along with just normal adjustments.

Comments and changes are welcomed :mrgreen:. I would love to know anything I can do to make it better or your adjustments.

Link to actual files: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7c722dadb81c20a9d2db6fb9a8902bda

Thanks alot!

shed301 · Oct 19, 2008

ok dude i'll give this a shot based on my observations i see

#1 very nice shot BUT you have shadows on the neck and the tree behind her, personally i would have used a reflector of some sort to try to bring the shine to the darker side of her face, neck etc

#2 To much sun on the left side of her face buddy The key to using natural light is the make it your friend and make it work for you and not against you. otherwise they are both nice pose's, You just went from to dark to to bright

hope this helps out a bit

note: i do like the way you blurred out the background in both pics though... just got to get the natural lighting sorted out a bit more

Others may vary in my remarks but it's what i see

Grant

tirediron · Oct 19, 2008

Hmmm... well, they're a good start, but I'm afraid they've a few issues. In the first, her skin appears muddy. A combination I suspect of slight under-exposure and incorrect white balance. Since skin tone varies so much and is so affected by changing light, shooting a white or grey reference card is critical. The background is nicely out of focus, but still bright enough to be distracting. As far as the pose, I'm not a big fan of this 'looking off' style, but that's purely subjective.
With respect to the second, much better skin tones, but unfortunate highlights on her right cheek/forehead. A diffuser would have resolved this. Again, she's not looking toward the camera, and with no catchlights at all, her eyes have a rather flat appearance. I'd suggest cropping off most of the RH side of the image as it really contributes nothing.

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

Bryant · Oct 19, 2008

Ok thanks for your help, I did use a 580EXII to use as fill, although it didn't work as well as i hoped. The second one i tried to do the rule of thirds.