Katelin

Reverend · Jul 5, 2006

This was a candid shot. Well, at her age they're all candid....

I guess I'm wondering if there's anything else I can do in the processing phase that could help make the image really "pop."

Peanuts · Jul 5, 2006

What a sweet portrait, especially seeing as she is just at that age where it is practically impossible to even keep track of her at all times!

My only suggestion would be to lighten it up a tad to make the skin tones warmer and perhaps help to decrease the shadow on the right side of her face. Most of this could probably be accomplished just by playing around in curves. Do you mind if I post a 5 min. edit?

jemmy · Jul 6, 2006

Agree with brittany - i think the curves adjustment will help make her eyes 'pop' too, they look pretty dark here at the moment - probably not half as gorgeous as in real life??!!.... if its okay, i would love to post an edit too??? are your pictures ok to edit???? xx

Reverend · Jul 6, 2006

oh yea, feel free to edit.. Just make sure you tell/show us what you did, specifically, so that we can all learn from your techniques.

Reverend · Jul 6, 2006

Here's my 2nd version, just brought the curves up a bit.

Torus34 · Jul 6, 2006

Darken the fabric to the upper right of the head. It's a distraction. The head will then 'pop out' from the background.

Reverend · Jul 6, 2006

Torus34 said:
Darken the fabric to the upper right of the head. It's a distraction. The head will then 'pop out' from the background.

Like this?

Peanuts · Jul 6, 2006

There we go, that looks a whole lot better.

Here is my few minute version in photoshop, in which I played around with curves a bit to obtain a similar result as yourself. The only downside is, I continued to clip the right side of her face even more, so I quickly brought some of the detail from her left check over to the right side of her face and blurred it. It looks quite unnatural at this time but with some more time in photoshop it just might work. I also did about a 10% dodge around her pupils to help bring out her beautiful blue eyes. (As well as clone in the upper left corner) When I was working on it, there might have been a tad bit more contrast/saturation in the photoshop program that doesn't appear to be on this version.

Philip Weir · Jul 6, 2006

Hi "Reverend' Trust you didn't mind me having a play with your image. Most of the things I did are obvious, but the main changes to give it some "sparkle" were [1] lightened the eyes and added a bit of blue and cyan.
[2] Put a light reflection in the eyes, very important. If the eyes are dead, the image looks dull. Philip.
www.philipweirphotography.com

Torus34 · Jul 6, 2006

Reverend · Jul 6, 2006

Philip Weir said:
[2] Put a light reflection in the eyes, very important.

With a 2 px paintbrush set to white?

mysteryscribe · Jul 6, 2006

Philip did you ever own a glamour shots studio

Thought I should at least put in an appearance for just doing it like one would in a real darkroom just light darken and recrop it. Also this again reminds me of the scene from from a movie so don't panic..

bowronfam3 · Jul 6, 2006

Here's my go at editing this adorable photo! Hope you like it! What a precious child!

-Crystal

markc · Jul 6, 2006

It is a sweet shot. When you have a stong light/dark element like this, a white reflector bouncing light back on to the shadowed side of the face can help a lot.

I figured I'd join the crowd too. Trying to even up the dark/light kills the contrast, but that's a sacrifice you sometimes have to choose.