Need C&C and process feedback on portrait of daughter

[dakkon76]

I've been pretty inactive on the forums for quite a while, but I've been doing quite a bit of shooting trying to improve my composition. I've moved up to LR3 also, and so I'm trying to get a better handle on that. Also have PS5, which I use pretty rarely I'll have to admit - would like to improve my skills with touching up in PS5.

Anyway, looking for overall C&C on this portrait. Was shot in late afternoon with a Canon 85mm F1.8 @ F2.0 on my XSi in RAW. I'd rather she had been facing the other way, but as you can see in the bottom right, there was a wall there I was avoiding. Aside from that, maybe a different crop? This is uncropped. I feel like it has the potential to be better, but I'm not sure what I'm missing in the processing.

Aside from adjusting white balance/exposure (she's pretty tan this summer, so that skin tone is pretty close) here's what I've done:

• Removed lots of white spots from her dress
• Softened the image slightly
• Saturated the blue a bit- but any more and I start to see a halo around the tree in top right
• Added a graduated filter from top down to under-expose the sky a bit more to help bring out the color
• Bumped up vibrance a bit, saturation down
• Changed the hue in some of the grass to bring it from ugly yellow to looking more green

So, what can I do to make this image look better? Thanks all!

Original:

Processed - 2nd version:

 

[The_Traveler]

on this portrait.

So, what can I do to make this image look better? Thanks all!

show her face

"the main thing is to make certain that the main thing stays the main thing" and in a portrait the face is usually the main thing.

 

[D-B-J]

It's difficult for us to comment on post processing when we can't see the original.. So post the original please. Also, the composition is totally off, because you would want her facing the empty space. Right now, all the open space on the left is empty, and the photo is weighted to the right side, making it unbalanced.

 

[joealcantar]

Show the face or show what she is looking at and has her interest? Do not crop at the joints , not a good look. Maybe a pony tail would have opened her face up.
Looks like you have a great place to shoot and a beautiful daughter to model for you, plan your sessions so they are short and she does not get tired of it. Look for that light where she can just pose for you.
-
Shoot well and thanks for sharing, Joe

 

[bazooka]

I dunno, not having her face makes the image more about color than about a person and the three colors hold up well together. Including her face would have made a completely different genre of image. Just a thought.

 

[dakkon76]

Thanks for the comments so far. I agree, composition isn't the best. She's hard to pose... if she sees you with the camera she hams it up like crazy! Go figure! Edited my initial post to include the original.

 

[mwcfarms]

I don't agree with the show the face comments. I think if she had been left frame would have been better for sure. We tend to follow what our eyes want to see, we look towards where she is looking and this way looks a bit unbalanced. If you could have shot side profile even better but its not a horrible picture. Technically incorrect but the work you have done on it is ok. Careful not too get too much cyan in the sky.

 

[dakkon76]

I dunno, not having her face makes the image more about color than about a person and the three colors hold up well together. Including her face would have made a completely different genre of image. Just a thought.

Agreed... and maybe referring to this as a "portrait" got me off on the wrong foot...

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Since you called it a portrait, it is a total fail. We have no idea what yur daughter looks like...

Had you not mentioned the P word I would have liked it

The colors work very well together. Due to the fact that we don't have a face, I don't really care about seeing/looking space and so, she can be anywhere in the frame. And, the background totally looks fake like a green screen job or a collage. Overall I like it.

Only thing I would have done differently is crop a bit on the bottom so the edge of the frame went right through her dress instead of along the hem of it. Plus that would have gotten rid of the little bit of brown in the bottom right corner... which I find extremely annoying.

 

[DiskoJoe]

get her to look at the camera. i guess darrel has seen this one yet. lol. try turning the camera 90 degrees to the left and take the shot again.

 

[dakkon76]

Ok, this is going to annoy some people... but I updated the pic on flickr through LR3 and it wrote over the original post-process that I had... so now the original posthas my updated pic which I changed a bit based on some feedback. I can't change the composition

Cropped for a 5x7 and took out enough of the wall so that you wouldn't know anything was there, made the exposure of the sky a bit less drastic, and toned down the grass that reminded me of a river dyed green once you pointed it out . Also a subtle vignette. Improvement?

 

[D-B-J]

The dress is a bit over saturated and her hair loses some of its warmth with the processing.