Aimee and Friends

banehawi (Critique Team)

7

3 Jan 2010 - 3:59 PM

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Hi Brian, Happy New year, - and welcome to the art of portraits!

As you said already, - you need room for full size, - but you can start with what youve done here and use Photoshop to make it look like you had a large space by adding canvas size.

First off, - try to calibrate white balance before you take a shot of the subject. Set everything up, place a gray card (cheap from Jessops, etc) and take a shot in raw. The continue with the shot. In post processing, open the gray card shot first, the using the white balance tool, click on the gray card. This will provide you with a white balance reading you should apply to all subsequent shots taken in the same light. Its a little off here as the girls skin tones are not looking right to me.

You didnt mention flash power, and which of the two you used as a main, its normally the one off to one side, 45 degrees and eye height thats the main, and the one closest to the camera is a fill light at a lower power, - perhaps - 1/2 or so, - you need to experiment. This will give some shadow and depth which is missing here.

Lastly, though its cute to have her looking at the toy, its better if you had her hold the bunny close and look at the lens for eye contact, - this is usually what makes the shot work, - eyes are everything in a portrait.


Take a look at the mod which fakes more room as mentioned, and it also includes some colour balance corrections for the skin tones, and a little sharpening.


Hope you find all this helpful,


Regards



Willie

Constructive Critique!