Girl in the Window

[MrPants]

Hey y'all! Newer photographer here (bout half a year)

Took a trip to Montreal this August and got some neat shots, figured I'd post one here for critique. Thanks in advance!

 

[MrPants]

Any thoughts at all are welcome.

pls

 

[Derrel]

This type of hidden/revealed shot is always tricky...I took it into Lightroom and monkeyed around with it for about five minutes to see what I could do with a darkening, then dodging, then painting on some more sharpening and clarity onto her...I'm not sure if my tweak adds much. I guess it depends on the intention one has.

 

[MrPants]

This type of hidden/revealed shot is always tricky...I took it into Lightroom and monkeyed around with it for about five minutes to see what I could do with a darkening, then dodging, then painting on some more sharpening and clarity onto her...I'm not sure if my tweak adds much. I guess it depends on the intention one has. View attachment 107593

Ooooh it looks great! It really added depth to the shot and brought out the detail a lot. I was wondering if there was too much light on top of her. Thanks!

 

[Derrel]

I'm glad you're not repulsed by my re-imagining of your original file. I took a large soft-edged adjustment brush in Lightroom and drew around the edges of the frame, to darken the window frame and edges of the curtains. I also painted on some sharpening and clarity...the net effect was to increase the patterned dots on the curtains, and to make her features a bit more contrasty...it looks different from your interpretation, but I thought yours was fine as well. I might have gone a bit too dark on the upper part of the curtains where the bright parts are, and speaking of which, that sort of burned out area at the top of the curtains--I could not quite recover that over-exposed area, but better, newer software might be able to, or a conversion from the raw file might be able to tone that one bright patch down a bit.

A thought JUST hit me, and I scrolled to look at it...this might make a fine SQUARE image with the brighter top parts cut off!

 

[JoeW]

Hey y'all! Newer photographer here (bout half a year)

Took a trip to Montreal this August and got some neat shots, figured I'd post one here for critique. Thanks in advance! View attachment 107511

Very clever idea, especially for a newer photographer. My biggest criticism is that the horizontal lines in the drapes don't work for me...if they had been vertical or not all. For instance, I think the concept is great but the photo would be better without the drapes. I like Derrel's edits--the photo is much more effective with the darker surroundings--you get a stronger compositional element of the model being framed by the window.

 

[MrPants]

Thanks a lot, guys! I'm still getting used to using editing software, so I'm learning all the tricks as I go. I use Lightroom 3, so it's a bit dated. This was also shot with my D70, so I can only get so much detail out of it.

Very good tips and ideas that I'll keep in mind for future shots! Y'all rock.