What do you think of these shots?

[Stacylouwho]

We took some pictures today.. Let me know what you think!

 

[jwbryson1]

First one you missed focus.


Second is okay but I'd like to see more light on him, particularly his face. :mrgreen:

 

[PropilotBW]

I love the pose you captured in The first one. Can you crop closer, though? There seems to be a lot of unneeded space, unless you are meaning to accentuate the golf cart trails.

 

[Stacylouwho]

Thanks! Yeah I notice the focus issue now. You are right his face is a little darker that the rest of his body.

 

[jwbryson1]

Did you use any kind of flash?

 

[Stacylouwho]

I love the pose you captured in The first one. Can you crop closer, though? There seems to be a lot of unneeded space, unless you are meaning to accentuate the golf cart trails.

Thanks! It is hard to capture any poses with him.. I'm just happy I got some lol! I already cropped it in some because the stroller was to the left.. But I can crop in more.

 

[Ashlee_Duh]

First one you missed focus.


Second is okay but I'd like to see more light on him, particularly his face. :mrgreen:

Exactly my thoughts. Light is key.

 

[Stacylouwho]

Did you use any kind of flash?

No, I just picked a spot the shade. I have yet to get an external flash, and I don't usually think to use my flash much.

 

[PropilotBW]

I love the pose you captured in The first one. Can you crop closer, though? There seems to be a lot of unneeded space, unless you are meaning to accentuate the golf cart trails.

Thanks! It is hard to capture any poses with him.. I'm just happy I got some lol! I already cropped it in some because the stroller was to the left.. But I can crop in more.

I looked at cropping more, but it looks odd with just asphalt in the background. Sometimes you may just have to lay down to get a lower angle.

 

[Stacylouwho]

I love the pose you captured in The first one. Can you crop closer, though? There seems to be a lot of unneeded space, unless you are meaning to accentuate the golf cart trails.

Thanks! It is hard to capture any poses with him.. I'm just happy I got some lol! I already cropped it in some because the stroller was to the left.. But I can crop in more.

I looked at cropping more, but it looks odd with just asphalt in the background. Sometimes you may just have to lay down to get a lower angle.

Okay.. I will try better with this next time. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Elliehanna]

I cropped the 2nd one and grayed out the top right corner, I donno if its any better to you but I think because of the foot (it distracts me lol) that a more school portrait style works

and I cropped and just auto contrasted, grayed the upper right corner on this one, still a little bit of asphalt but not as much

again I am new at this too (and really just been messing with my photoshop lol) but I wanted to see if I could do anything with them and this is what I came up with

 

[Stacylouwho]

Thanks EllieHanna! I have yet to get LR but am saving and should have it soon. I have gimp but it just annoys me most of the time lol

 

[Elliehanna]

lol yea I had gimp and it did the same to me, I got a free photoshop CS2 oh about a year ago from a promo from adobe and finally started learning how to do more than cropping about a week ago (been looking for how to videos and stumbled across someone that made some I actually kinda understand lol)

 

[Stacylouwho]

lol yea I had gimp and it did the same to me, I got a free photoshop CS2 oh about a year ago from a promo from adobe and finally started learning how to do more than cropping about a week ago (been looking for how to videos and stumbled across someone that made some I actually kinda understand lol)

Which one? I have seen a few of them on you tube.. But I'm like you.. Need someone I can understand!

 

[KmH]

View attachment 41937

I think more thought about the angle of the light was in order, or the use of some fill lighting.
I globally capture sharpened in ACR and increased the Clarity slider.
In Photoshop:
I cropped a little off the right side of the image, so the babies left eye is right on a rule-of-thirds (RoT) power point..
I have added exposure to the baby by selecting (Quick Select Tool) the baby (saved selection), making a new layer with the selection active (CTRL-J), changing the blending mode of the new layer to Screen, and reducing the layer Opacity to 25%.
I retrieved the baby selection but checked the Invert option so everything except the baby was selected. With that selection active I added a neutral density gradient (Gradient Tool) from the top of the image to the babies knees.
I then selectively sharpened the babies face, hat, fingers, neck area, using the Sharpening Tool set to 65%, Protect Details.
I then used the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select the eye whites and iris. With that selection active I made an Exposure Adjustment Layer and increased the exposure 0.25 EV.
I then used the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select the babies lips. With that selection active I made a Color Balance Adjustment Layer, subtracted some Magenta, and added some Red.
I flattened all the layers, duplicated the Background Layer (Ctrl-J) and clicked on Filter > Topaz Adjust.
I used Topaz Adjust's - Photo Pop - preset on that new layer and faded the preset to 25%.
Lastly I added a thin black border (Image > Canvas Size)