C&C Welcome

[Toothtek]

I want to learn so please give me something to learn.

[IzzieK]

Manfred and some others will be able to advise you better than I can here. Let us wait for his response.

[chauncey]

Be aware that I don't shoot people, that said...hair looks good/face looks like overly plastic/would like
to see her other half as well/background is standard fare without imagination.

Next time, some makeup would be nice, try side lighting (maybe @ 11 o'clock) for a faint shadow to
illustrate some depth. A couple of links to follow...

http://digital-photography-school.co...ferent-photos/
https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...on+photography

[Geoff F]

I'm another one who tries to avoid portraits! However I agree that this is a fraction on the 'flat' side.

Would slightly boosting the highlights to increase contrast give it a bit more of a boost! But be careful with any extra editing because over the top processing looks much worse.

[Loose Canon]

I want to learn so please give me something to learn.

Hey Mitch!

There are two chances that you would learn something from me!

They are in order:

Slim and none!

But I don’t shy away from shooting portraits in a studio environment and I would love to have the opportunity to shoot a beautiful model as you have!

Mitch, if I may, I’d toss something out for your consideration. If you think it has merit we could toss around some ideas together for discussion. If not, then no worries!

To start this is a really good shot! Great pose that is classically feminine, eyes and shoulder on a diagonal, even the clothing on the diagonal. Part of the hair on the low side, hair sweeping across the forehead in an opposing diagonal and falling beautifully down the near side of the face? You nailed it!

What I would do if it were mine are things that I would do without question. Those would include losing the flyaway hairs. The suggestion of makeup I would consider but only so much as a little powdering of the face nose such that your lighting would be a little more even on the facial features. Not a big difference in the mid tones and the highlights. Something to consider at the shoot and can be improved in post a bit.

I don’t think her face looks so very plastic. I think that may be a product of the lack of contrast and I would go with the previous suggestion to adjust that.

I am seeing what I would consider a bit of a color cast. This one is going to be open for interpretation but her clothing tells the story if not the skin tones. I wouldn’t worry so much about the clothing as the skin tones and that beautiful red hair.

Its easy to tell where you placed your lights. It’s even easy to guess the ratio. This kind of lighting looks good and is not near as flat as is used in so-called “glam” stuff. But again I might look at some contrast adjustment.

There are some other ways you could go too if you wanted. Not that you should, but that you have the choice.

Well, anyway Mitch, I think it is a shot you can be proud of. The disclaimer: “uh, I don’t do portraits but…” I’m guessing never got into the studio to find out or know what you have done here!

Here is what I wanted to toss out for your considered consideration and I guess I would consider this some of the maybe a tad bit more objective stuff maybe open to interpretation! Its just a quickie for an unfinished interpretation but if I had shot this Mitch, I would give it all I could.

It’s that good.

[Toothtek]

Hey Mitch!

There are two chances that you would learn something from me!

They are in order:

Slim and none!

But I don’t shy away from shooting portraits in a studio environment and I would love to have the opportunity to shoot a beautiful model as you have!

Mitch, if I may, I’d toss something out for your consideration. If you think it has merit we could toss around some ideas together for discussion. If not, then no worries!

To start this is a really good shot! Great pose that is classically feminine, eyes and shoulder on a diagonal, even the clothing on the diagonal. Part of the hair on the low side, hair sweeping across the forehead in an opposing diagonal and falling beautifully down the near side of the face? You nailed it!

What I would do if it were mine are things that I would do without question. Those would include losing the flyaway hairs. The suggestion of makeup I would consider but only so much as a little powdering of the face nose such that your lighting would be a little more even on the facial features. Not a big difference in the mid tones and the highlights. Something to consider at the shoot and can be improved in post a bit.

I don’t think her face looks so very plastic. I think that may be a product of the lack of contrast and I would go with the previous suggestion to adjust that.

I am seeing what I would consider a bit of a color cast. This one is going to be open for interpretation but her clothing tells the story if not the skin tones. I wouldn’t worry so much about the clothing as the skin tones and that beautiful red hair.

Its easy to tell where you placed your lights. It’s even easy to guess the ratio. This kind of lighting looks good and is not near as flat as is used in so-called “glam” stuff. But again I might look at some contrast adjustment.

There are some other ways you could go too if you wanted. Not that you should, but that you have the choice.

Well, anyway Mitch, I think it is a shot you can be proud of. The disclaimer: “uh, I don’t do portraits but…” I’m guessing never got into the studio to find out or know what you have done here!

Here is what I wanted to toss out for your considered consideration and I guess I would consider this some of the maybe a tad bit more objective stuff maybe open to interpretation! Its just a quickie for an unfinished interpretation but if I had shot this Mitch, I would give it all I could.

It’s that good.

Thanks Terry, This has helped me a lot, your edit shows me that there was in fact a color cast and that I need to consider a bit more dodging and burning to render a better depth to my edits,( this was my first edit using Intous5 , along with the curves layers for D&B. I have soo much to learn.
I am going back to the tablet and work another portrait over and I would appreciate your input on anything I post...

[Loose Canon]

Cool Mitch! Glad to have helped a bit if I have!

I’ve looked at this quite a bit more since we have posted and the more I do the more I’m digging it!

If this is what you are going to bring us from your studio I say the sooner the quicker!

[Manfred M]

Hi Mitch; welcome to CiC.

First of all - beautiful work, and the two suggestions (lighting ratio and crop) have already been made. Cleaning up a few stray hairs has also been mentioned. That being the case, let me suggest a couple of more minor adjustments that you might want to try.

1. I might be tempted to raise the camera right light a bit higher; it is a touch low, I think. I generally like to have the main catch light at the 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock position. This would tend to drive a bit of more light down and add a bit of shadow detail falling down and should sculpt her left cheek line a bit more dramatically. You'd also get a bit more of a kick on her hair making it sparkle a bit more.

2. Your model's right eye is larger than her left one and you could balance that out a bit more by getting her to rotate her head slightly to her right (camera left). She also seems to have a bit of a lazy eye. Her left eye (camera right) is fairly centred, but her right eye seems to have slipped towards her nose; the distribution of her right (camera left) eyeball points almost to the nose. I would try to get the model to look is a direction that balances out where the eyes are looking to make things look a bit less strange. Having her look straight ahead to a distant object should help here.

3. I would probably replace the camera left light with a white reflector that is just out of camera range and pushing a bit of fill light from camera left and below. The reflector would give you the fill light and would also give you something like a 2:1 lighting ratio and give the shot a bit more depth. The 2:1 lighting ratio is quite feminine and soft, but gives more of a 3D look.

I would either leave the second light completely out of the shot or might play with it and place it camera left and behind the model to try to try to brighten up her hair on that side. I don't know what modifiers you are shooting with; but this is something I would try to do with a grid spot to throw a narrow beam onto the hair from that side.