Jasmine. My first photoshoot...

Edsport · Jul 26, 2012

I used on camera flash so the lighting is flat. Gonna have to invest in a softbox. I didn't have my glasses on and i think i oversharpened also...

cgipson1 · Jul 26, 2012

1 and 2.. not bad, especially for OC flash. As mentioned.. a bit flat.. but color and sharpness is good. #1 is your keeper! Maybe a slight crop to kill dead space!

Skin tones on the rest need some more work.. badly!

neih59 · Jul 26, 2012

CGIPSON1 -- my photos are similar to that of EdSport. It's annoying me quite a bit because it looks very unprofessional (no offense EdSport). When you mentioed "Skin tones", how do you correct that? Post editing? lighting? lenses? new body? Basically, how do you get that magazine look?

Noob toys: Canon 7D / 50mm 1.4 / 28-135mm

Edsport · Jul 26, 2012

Lots to learn and lots of practice lol. Thanks for the comments...

Here's a couple more. The first has her centered and shot in landscape orientation so i'm sure this could use better composition, how's the second one?

PinkDoor · Jul 26, 2012

Hi Ed - so, here it is. . . my c&C. You were so close! I would have NOT used a flash. . . instead, a reflector would have worked so much better, or as you said, a soft box. The flash shadow appearing in most of the shot totally kills it for me to say "professional". The shot with the white vignette, please. . . . don't ever use that vignette again. It looks awful

I say that with love!

Number 3 was my favorite. Cut off limbs, blah blah blah. . . I know the limbs are cut, but I think when you look at your best shots, you can override the rules. I think number 3, with better pp editing is your frame-able winner! Here's my suggested edit: Warm up the skin tone, crop off more of the right side, remove the shadows caused by the flash, brighten eyes, and darken the silver clip of her bow. Here's my take (original versus edit):

MTVision · Jul 26, 2012

neih59 said:
CGIPSON1 -- my photos are similar to that of EdSport. It's annoying me quite a bit because it looks very unprofessional (no offense EdSport). When you mentioed "Skin tones", how do you correct that? Post editing? lighting? lenses? new body? Basically, how do you get that magazine look?

Noob toys: Canon 7D / 50mm 1.4 / 28-135mm

I don't know about the magazine look but good exposure, lighting and white balance help with getting good skin tones. But even when you get all that the skin tone may still look off depending on reflected colors/color casts.

Google skin tone correction by the numbers - CMYK #'s. In photoshop you can take color samples and get their RGB and CMYK #'s. Basic formula for Caucasian is something like C (cyan) is 1/3-1/5 less then Y (yellow) and M (magenta) is 5-10% less then Y. But correcting skin tone by the numbers will not work if exposure and white balance aren't good.

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93363

Edsport · Jul 27, 2012

PinkDoor thanks for the tips, i truely appreciate it but on my screen your edit is very yellow. Maybe my screen needs calibration...

pixilstudio · Jul 27, 2012

no white vignette .. bad

Edsport · Jul 28, 2012

pixilstudio said:
no white vignette .. bad

I guess vignettes is like selective coloring, i think most people don't like them because others don't like them lol. I posted these photos on other forums and they love the vignette. Go figure...

rexbobcat · Jul 28, 2012

Edsport said:
pixilstudio said:

no white vignette .. bad

Click to expand...

I guess vignettes is like selective coloring, i think most people don't like them because others don't like them lol. I posted these photos on other forums and they love the vignette. Go figure...

It's not the "sheep" or "mob" complex as much as it just adds nothing to the photo. I verges on gimmicky, and one that heavy is very distracting, because there is a very visible line where the white circle meets the actual photo.

A photo should be able to stand on its own without having to remove on of the key aspects or change something dramatically such as with selective color. It can work if you incorporate the selective color into the composition or concept, but just making a photo selective color just for the heck of it is like saying "this is a bad photo, but I did this really cool editing thing so now it's good, right?" 80% of the time, it just doesn't add anything constructive to the photo. It's the same with the white vignette. It's too heavy that it makes the photo boring and/or...cheap looking...