Kids potraits C&C please

pony · Oct 4, 2009

I have a pop up bounce flash on my camera, but nothing else so I am trying to get good pics with only natural light.
The only photo editing I have it through picnik, so I played around with these 2 images of my friends' kids. I'm posting before and afters of both.
Is the stuff I did to them too much? Are they all horrible?
Any advice would be much appreciated
TIA

cuflaxlym · Oct 4, 2009

They look so nice. Great pics.

Felix0890 · Oct 4, 2009

They both look angelic in the edited versions. What did you do to make them look like that?

schumionbike · Oct 4, 2009

It seem like the flash is a bit too strong, it's diffuse so that good but it's too contrasty to the rest of the picture in my opinion. I like the composition in the first shot though.

IgsEMT · Oct 4, 2009

I love the soft focus.
pop up flash doesn't flatter the images and at times makes things worst. On the market there are 3rd party flashes that can and often do with TTL with specific camera and are cheaper then the brand ones.
Good Luck

photosoto · Oct 4, 2009

how did you get that soft look??

pony · Oct 5, 2009

Felix0890 said:
They both look angelic in the edited versions. What did you do to make them look like that?

In picnik I used Orton-ish. It's not fancy, but it did almost what I was trying to do

schumionbike said:
It seem like the flash is a bit too strong, it's diffuse so that good but it's too contrasty to the rest of the picture in my opinion. I like the composition in the first shot though.

I am not sure I used the flash on either of these, but I will keep that in mind. Pic #2 was in the brightest house I have ever been in! I may as well have been shooting outside in full sun

IgsEMT said:
I love the soft focus.
pop up flash doesn't flatter the images and at times makes things worst. On the market there are 3rd party flashes that can and often do with TTL with specific camera and are cheaper then the brand ones.
Good Luck

Thanks. I have exactly zero money right now, so I am stuck working only with what I already own. I am saving up for some classes and some basic equipment.