What causes this?

[poof]

And how do I keep it from happening in the future? There's a dark outline/shadow around her. Also, what's the best way to deal with this in post?

 

[Foques]

i thought it was flash generated shadow. Beautiful shot, btw.

 

[poof]

Thanks. That would be my first guess, but there was no flash.

 

[creisinger]

Can't see the image...

 

[poof]

Screwed up on photobucket. Should be good now.

 

[Dominantly]

My guess is post processing.

 

[poof]

It's there on the original. Any ideas on the best way to deal with it in editing?

 

[Dominantly]

hmm... are you sure it isn't a shadow? I men I see a shadow by the hand as well, that falls the same direction as the other.

I would open it up and try and maybe dodge the line to see if you can get it to blend.

 

[poof]

I guess it could be a shadow, but the only light source is the sun coming in the window. It seems like the angle of illumination is wrong for it to be a shadow.

I tried dodging but couldn't seem to get it just right.

 

[creisinger]

I don't see a line just the light fall-off inside the room. The whole thing could have been prevented by bouncing the flash off the ceiling/walls.

Without flash it's tough to eliminate the dark areas since the little fellow is standing too close to the window and would be blown out (well the face would be - not the kid...).

No idea how to eliminate this problem in post. Try HDR-ing the whole things using the RAW file but that's as close as it gets.

Nice shot - funny angle though.

 

[Dominantly]

*I played around with this for a couple mins, but came to the conclusion it would take a decent amount of time to get that shadow out of there (well at least for me it would).. So I tried this real quick to see if it was a viable option. Instead of making the area lighter, I made it darker to match the shadow (not really missing much on the floor)...
Now with additional time you could blend a bit better, or add more light to the curtain, etc. meh.

 

[Dominantly]

Another way to edit this would be to separate the child and the background in PS and edit the background independently via layers. You could do some level adjustments via multiple layers to get it to blend... Thats what I meant by taking a bit longer as the separation would have to be spot on around the face because of the difference in color.

 

[poof]

That's a really good idea. I like it. Thanks for taking the time to help.

 

[poof]

So you didn't separate her from the background you in the edit you just posted?

 

[Dominantly]

No problem, it peaked my curiosity as well