Fall family portraits - help with post processing

adamhiram

No longer a newbie, moving up!
Joined
Feb 6, 2015
Messages
854
Reaction score
572
Can others edit my Photos
Photos OK to edit
It’s that time of year again when I try to take our own family photos, only to be faced with a litany of technical challenges, and chasing good light seems like a lost cause. This year was especially challenging with fall foliage disappearing almost as quickly as it came, and heavy storms every weekend in between. This left very limited options for both location and direction to shoot.

I did my best with what I had to work with, but would definitely appreciate any recommendations on what I could do differently when post processing these images.

This first shot was taken at 85mm at f/4 with the sun coming from behind and camera right, providing backlighting for the trees and rim lighting for the subjects. The "good light" was about an hour earlier when the sun was more directly behind the subjects, rather than burning out the edge highlights. Off camera flash was used for fill from a 38” octobox above and just out of frame camera left.


20181111-DSC_0323a
by adamhiram, on Flickr

The second photo was taken at 85mm at f/2 and shot wide and cropped in a bit. It was taken in direct midday sun, which was far from ideal, as the area was in full open shade about an hour prior. I did what I could in post to reduce highlights and bring up shadows (decrease highlights and whites, increase shadows and blacks, a bit of dodging and burning with the adjustment brush to even out the scene), but the final image looks a bit overcooked to me. Any recommendations on better ways to process this type of image are appreciated. I included the original image below to show what I had to work with (1 head composited from another shot).


20181110-DSC_0258a
by adamhiram, on Flickr


20181110-DSC_0258-original
by adamhiram, on Flickr
 
To me this always seems like a doctor performing his own surgery. These are a nice set of family portraits, but I suspect that they would have been much better if all you had to do is worry about sitting there. That said, as far as post goes, the main thing I see is CROP... crop wayyyyyyyy in. the leaves and trees are a background. NOT a sideground and frontground too.
 
#1 is the winner of the bunch.

Like tirediron said though, it can still use some cropping. It’s good to shoot a little wide to give yourself room to crop for different aspect ratios for prints.
 
Crop. The contrast of the yellow leaves against the red/brown still on the trees are too far apart to me, and both detract from the family.

Tim

Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk
 
It’s that time of year again when I try to take our own family photos, only to be faced with a litany of technical challenges, and chasing good light seems like a lost cause. This year was especially challenging with fall foliage disappearing almost as quickly as it came, and heavy storms every weekend in between. This left very limited options for both location and direction to shoot.

I did my best with what I had to work with, but would definitely appreciate any recommendations on what I could do differently when post processing these images.

This first shot was taken at 85mm at f/4 with the sun coming from behind and camera right, providing backlighting for the trees and rim lighting for the subjects. The "good light" was about an hour earlier when the sun was more directly behind the subjects, rather than burning out the edge highlights. Off camera flash was used for fill from a 38” octobox above and just out of frame camera left.


20181111-DSC_0323a
by adamhiram, on Flickr

The second photo was taken at 85mm at f/2 and shot wide and cropped in a bit. It was taken in direct midday sun, which was far from ideal, as the area was in full open shade about an hour prior. I did what I could in post to reduce highlights and bring up shadows (decrease highlights and whites, increase shadows and blacks, a bit of dodging and burning with the adjustment brush to even out the scene), but the final image looks a bit overcooked to me. Any recommendations on better ways to process this type of image are appreciated. I included the original image below to show what I had to work with (1 head composited from another shot).


20181110-DSC_0258a
by adamhiram, on Flickr


20181110-DSC_0258-original
by adamhiram, on Flickr
Any of these could be our favorite, with just a few changes. I'm no good at post-capture editing, so no suggestions on that.

#1 might be the best one because you got your son's face, but that backlight isn't doing what you had hoped for. Too strong compared to the front light, which is pretty good. I say use #1 and just crop it a bit more.

#2 & #3 have the wrong light, which I think you already know. Aside from being quite flat, the WB in these do not match, and I think the WB in #3 is probably correct.
 
Thanks for the great feedback! I kind of figured #2 was a non-starter, but a simple crop on #1 definitely improved the composition.

To me this always seems like a doctor performing his own surgery.
I recall you telling me the same thing last year! Absolutely agreed, but as long as I can pre-focus and use the built-in intervalometer along with a wireless remote, I can get bursts of 9 shots at a time as long as they are posed. There are definitely limitations though.

the main thing I see is CROP... crop wayyyyyyyy in. the leaves and trees are a background. NOT a sideground and frontground too.
Done. As @TreeofLifeStairs alluded to, I shot wide to leave room for different crops. This will likely be used for a holiday card, which can be anywhere from a square 1x1 to a wide 1x2 ratio. Here's a tighter crop.


20181111-DSC_0323b
by adamhiram, on Flickr

#2 & #3 have the wrong light, which I think you already know.
Yup, and this isn't the first time I've posted looking for help in fixing bad light in post, which never really looks right in the end. I'll scout a location ahead of time and note when the light is good, but by the time we get a kid ready and out of the house, I can never seem to hit that window. Last year I found a great location on a nature trail with amazing light around 10am, but by the time the time we got everyone ready, it was 12:30pm. That's pretty much what happened with shot #2 above. As a side note, this is why I've been spending more time learning studio lighting - nothing changes if the subject is uncooperative and delays us an hour or two!
 
Last edited:
... As a side note, this is why I've been spending more time learning studio lighting - nothing changes if the subject is uncooperative and delays us an hour or two!
Very true! That said, you can often give Mother Nature a helping hand, especially if you have reasonably strong light (~300+ W/S) that can do HSS.
 
That said, you can often give Mother Nature a helping hand, especially if you have reasonably strong light (~300+ W/S) that can do HSS.
That's what I was trying for in #1, but unfortunately didn't have quite enough power. I already had my settings maxed out, with ISO set to L 1.0 (simulated ISO 50), shutter speed at 1/250s (max sync speed), and aperture at f/4 (I would have preferred a bit wider). I think I could've saved the highlights if I was able to underexpose by 1-2 stops, but with a speed light already pushed to full power, I hit my limit. Even if I figured out how to jam all 3 of my speed lights into the softbox, that still wouldn't have gotten me to the 300W/S equiv.
 
Yeah, there’s no competing with the sun. Work with it when you can but trying to overpower it with more light can be a losing battle.

I hear you with the kid factor. I’ve got 3 and try to do what you’re doing. There’s no way of predicting how much time we’ll need to get ready. Most of the time it’s anywhere from an hour to 2 hours to get ready. On those rare good days they’ll cooperate and we’ll be out the door in 15 mins and then we’ll be 1/2 hour early to whatever was planned and then we’ll need to keep them clean and picture ready the whole time which is like juggling.

So either we’re an hour late or a half hour early. Neither works when you’re trying to be somewhere at a particular time.
 
@adamhiram Great family shots!!!! Being your own photographer is no easy task, so I think they all look good, but #1 and #2 are my favorites, because you were looking down in #3. The only negative I have on #1 is the fence in the background, not nearly as attractive as the other two, but cropping tighter in your edit helped minimize some of that. I still might be tempted to burn down the highlight on the side of your face just a tad. All in all I like the pose in #1, but I'm not really opposed to #2 either. There's nothing more beautiful then a child's laugh, and he's having a good one!! So if I had to pick one, for a card, I might just pick it.
 
Yes, the heavy crop-in rescued the one shot, and is what I would suggest on all of the shots from the original post. Selfies are VERY difficult to do well. A group shot done that way sounds exceptionally difficult to me.
 
Like the others, I liked the cropped in shot a lot.

Tim
 
Great family shots!!!! Being your own photographer is no easy task, so I think they all look good, but #1 and #2 are my favorites, because you were looking down in #3
Thanks! To clarify, there are only two photos. #3 is the unprocessed Raw for #2 - I just included it for reference to show my starting point for the edit. I composited in my head from another shot, but otherwise it’s the same image. I think it’s still passable and most non-photographers probably wouldn’t know the difference, but it bothered me enough to reshoot the next day (#1).

I still might be tempted to burn down the highlight on the side of your face just a tad.
Unfortunately the highlights on the rim light in #1 are gone. Direct sunlight will do that...

Yes, the heavy crop-in rescued the one shot, and is what I would suggest on all of the shots from the original post. Selfies are VERY difficult to do well. A group shot done that way sounds exceptionally difficult to me.
Thanks, Derrel! I still think the hard part is getting the family to the right spot at the right time. While not ideal, pre-focusing, shooting a little wide, and using a wireless remote with the built-in intervalometer seems to do the trick if I take enough shots... My problem has consistently been getting back to the location at the desired time.
 
Last edited:
Would an ND filter possibly have worked here?
I think this would have had the same limitation using a speed light for the key light, since it is already firing at full power. The other catch here, even if I had an ND filter and more powerful flash, is that this method results in darkening the background. I actually wanted the background about 1 stop brighter, but had to adjust settings when the sun moved and started creating overexposed highlights and harsh shadows. The real solution would have been just shooting an hour earlier, for both shots.

My real question was what can be done about it in post, particularly with shot #2. Most tutorials I found say the same thing - flatten the image by reducing highlights and whites, increasing shadows and blacks, then find a way to add enough contrast back into it so it doesn't look so flat, like playing around with the tone curve and dodging and burning with the the adjustment brush. I did the best I could with it, but in the end I think I'm still just trying to fix a bad shot.
 

Most reactions

Back
Top