Engagement shoot, Help me make them better!

[OneTruthRemains]

I shot these for a couple of friends at a horse barn/grass runway. I have tried to edit to their liking, but would love suggestions on how to improve the editing and the composition for the future.



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Thanks for your time. For extra info: I didnt charge for these, in fact I usually dont. Im still learning the technical aspects of editing and I really want to learn how to do it better. They were thrilled with the shots and have used them for wedding invites/thank you cards, so I made them happy, but want to be able to do better next time.

 

[Aayria]

Could you post the SOOC of 2 and 4? There is something really wonky going on with the color, making their skin very very grey. I think number 8 is the strongest compositionally of your set..but it's difficult to tell for sure on this monitor if it's totally in focus.

Overall, and I am honestly not trying to be snarky or tell you to close up shop...but I think you would benefit more from stepping back from the editing and picking a technical aspect to really focus on to help your photography grow. It's not a good policy for a photographer to ever have to think to his/herself "Oh I'll just make that shot work in editing." You should aim for the best SOOC you can get, and the editing should only enhance what it already has going for it.

Keep shooting, I really enjoyed these, what a fun concept and location! =)

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Stop shooting in direct overhead sunlight for one.

 

[OneTruthRemains]

These were shot between 8 and 9 am, so not direct overhead, just maybe bad angles on my part And AAyria, I should have clarified that I do push first for the best OOC, but I'm really still learning how to make all those changes adjustments on the spot. I only do a shoot like this every couple of months, so I tend to forget some things between. And now that I look at them again, I agree the skin tone looks off, thanks for pointing that out. I don't have the OOC on hand, but here are some that i had only made minor changes to for those 2 shots.

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[gsgary]

Reshoot or look here http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photoshop-challenges/151670-silk-purse-sows-ear.html

 

[SoCalTiger]

Here are some comments:

2 & 4 - The color balance is definitely off here or something. You should be able to adjust both of those in post or change the WB if you were shooting in RAW. Did you up the saturation or apply actions on #2? Looks like maybe that is the culprit if you were trying to make the picture more vivid. You need to mask off her skin if that is what happened.

2 - Given the lighting and her hat, looks like you could have use fill light camera right. There is too much shadow/contrast on her face which detracts from the image. Otherwise the composition and pose is good.

6 & 8 - These are the best of the set IMO.

6 & 7 - Subjects are underexposed. I would have upped the exposure here. 6 you could lighten a little bit using curve work. I found 7 definitely too dark; appears to be exposed for the sky.

 

[cgipson1]

You need to learn to even out the lighting with either reflectors, or fill flash.. that will help to control both the overexposed and underexposed shots here. A diffuser to throw light shade on the subject is useful too, as it will cut the contrast down immensely.

Looks like your skin tone processing may need some work also.

try this:

Tip of the Day: Skin Tones By the Numbers | Popular Photography

Correcting Skin Color: CMYK Tone Values & Nationality (Ethnic) Variations | Measuring and Correct Skin Color

 

[Stradawhovious]

Re-shoot.

In addition to having what seems to be pretty bad lighting, many of them are out of focus.