Big Blue Eyes

[EmmyJane]

Hi There,

Here's another photo of my daughter. Thanks to Andre I have now downloaded Picasa and played with the photo a little with some colour and blur around the edges.



Her lips look a little dry and there is the wisp of hair over her chin and a few little marks on her face. I am not clever enough to remove those though...

Would love some feedback on my second attempt

[AB26]

Hi Emily,
Now look at those beautiful eyes.
Keep on shooting and play around with different camera settings. If you find something that works for you, stick to it.
Don't mind the hair and other mishaps, that is the way we learn, what to look out for when shooting. You are also going to get shots with horrible backgrounds.
Be very careful with the sliders so you do not over do. See if you can tune your camera to get as close to what effect you want.
Keep shooting

[Trina]

Emily, You have a very beautiful daughter Love the color of her eyes.... I would like to see them sharper in this image... Were they sharp before you did the blur? I am not familiar with Picasa, but was able to make them pop using the unsharpen mask in photoshop.... Also there seems to be a yellow color cast...might play with your white balance and see if that gives a more natural skin color.... there is a wonderful new tutorial called Digital Photo Editing Workflow Just found it this morning... There was A LOT of information in there that was very helpful to me..I am just learning too:> Keep at it...take lots of pictures and ask lots of question:>

[rpcrowe]

Lots of times, you can prevent needing a lot of post production correction by preventing the problems (such as the wandering strands of hair) in the first place.

Many adult portraits of women can be drastically improved by judicious use of makeup and hair arrangement. Additionally, photo makeup is often applied heavier than street makeup. I absolutely love it when a photo shoot includes makeup artists and hair dressers. My photo club will often combine models, makeup artists, hair stylists and photographers on a shoot. We provide the models and the artists with images they can use for their portfolios and we get models who pose for free. It is a total win-win situation...

Of course, a portrait of a child will not incorporate makeup or a hair stylist. However, having a small hairbrush along with some tissues and facial wipes in your camera kit can prevent the need for a lot of post production correction.

When shooting adult females and teenagers without a makeup person available, one of the most important accessories is a pack of facial tissues to reduce the oily sheen that IMO ruins portraits.

BTW: Do a YouTube search with the search parameter "Picasa" that will bring you to a plethora of neat video tutorials on photo editing with that program.

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...ac.5Z6GeN2wlzs

This is also true for virtually any other editing program. I tend to learn things better when I see them demonstrated in a video.