Diy family portriat!

[JustJazzie]

These were taken the old fashion way, with a self timer and me running in and out of the frame. This was the best shot of the bunch, since we quickly lost the attention of my little one. Unfortunately it required some major clone work to be saved. So be honest- does it stick out like a sore thumb? Can you point me towards and cloning tutorials? Any CC is welcome! Thanks for looking.

 

[tirediron]

There are hundreds of cloning tutorials on YouTube; your best bet will be to search through them and find one that works well with your technique and software. With respect to the image, given the conditions, it's not bad at all; I wish you'd been farther from the background; the wrinkles in the fabric are a bit distracting. The lighting is decent, and the cloning doesn't stand out too horribly...

 

[JustJazzie]

There are hundreds of cloning tutorials on YouTube; your best bet will be to search through them and find one that works well with your technique and software. With respect to the image, given the conditions, it's not bad at all; I wish you'd been farther from the background; the wrinkles in the fabric are a bit distracting. The lighting is decent, and the cloning doesn't stand out too horribly...

Thanks for your thoughts! I appreciate it! I definitely agree we could have been farther from the backdrop, unfortunately, my window placement caused tight quarters. Perhaps I can try to smooth them out in post.

As for the cloning tutorials, unfortunately my Internet is capped, since I live out in the boonies and have to be on satalite Internet. So if anyone knows of a good tutorial for Aperture 3 that they could send my way and save me from sifting through hundred's of YouTube videos and chewing my my bandwidth, it would be appreciated!

 

[JustJazzie]

All right, does this look any better? I tried to smooth out some wrinkles without taking away all texture, and then tweaked over my cloned section again.

 

[Derrel]

At this small size, the cloning is not apparent to me. Second one looks a bit better, yes. One suggestion I have: your older boy's personage seems to be causing a slight shadow on DH's left chest area...I would hit that area with the dodge tool to alleviate that shadowing, which makes his shirt look a little dirty..

On muslin or other wrinkly fabrics, I often will hit those with a fairly large-diameter brush and either skin softening, or negative clarity, or negative sharpening, sometimes two or three of those things, sometimes the dodge tool on white to make it brighter.