My friend's grandaughter

[travis4567]

[pnodrog]

Lovely face and expression and pleasant lighting. I would prefer it if there was a little bit more space above the hair but as the crop is so tight I think you may as well crop out the peach/red colour behind the head and maybe the white on the right side although it does not worry me as much as the peach/red colour. (vertical crops)

You should try and get her to sit for a portrait session as she is a great little model.

[ggt]

Her face looks a little pasty? Or is it that it is the same tone as the background?

I love her expression, could ou adjust the lighting to separate the tones between her skin and the background?
Maybe clone out the red to the left and the white to the right? or closer crop the sides.

There is such nice detail on her hair and eyes. What a cutie! You've really captured a sense of honesty in her expression.

Thanks for posting.

[JPS]

Hi There,
I agree with Gretchen, things look a little 'pasty' but overall a nice picture,a very pretty little girl. Well done.

May I offer another option? The quickest way is to post the alternativeversion.

I will ofcourse take it down, if you would rather I had not posted.
Thanks for sharing.

[travis4567]

Thanks my friends for all the comments and suggestions..this is a straight shot with no post processing, her skin actually is that color. I took your suggestions John, and added a little color separation between her and the background. Thanks again for the comments.

[ggt]

Oh yes, Travis, this redo is lovely. She is such a cutie! I like that there is more color on her lips as well.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Travis!

Please tell your Friend from me what a Sweetie Granddaughter he has!

And a very nice shot of her I might add. I would imagine your Friend would be very happy with this shot.

I’d toss out a couple of suggestions here for your consideration if I may? Though I may be a little late to the Party!

The lighting looks a little flat from where I’m sitting. A setting of the black and white points would go a long ways to help that. And setting the white balance off of a lighter spot on your gray background would also probably work well.

There is a little red corner of your background down in the lower left corner of the frame that might be better off not being there. I believe it may also be visible through her hair as well.

Also Friend’s Granddaughter has some stray flyaway hairs that I would lose if this were my shot. Some strays on her face, too.

I personally think this is an excellent classic pose and she has a great expression. But since her face is turned away from the camera, I probably would have asked myself if I would have liked it better if she were looking into the lens (or at least more toward it, eyes only- without turning her head. Or maybe have her head turned just slightly more toward the camera) to get her beautiful iris’ a bit more centered instead of looking hard into the corners of her eyes.

As always, I did a little retouch to see if any of these theories hold water before I post with any comments! Some of the other things I did while I was at it:

Removed blemishes
A wee bit of skin softening (and toned down a few of the spectrals on her face and corner of her right [camera left] eye). The softening just to get her skin tone a tad more even
Reduced (but not entirely removed) the darker rings under her eyes
Some selective sharpening
Some dodging & burning
A little vignetting

I would have gone to the wall and filled in the gaps in the left (camera right) side of her hair had the shot been mine, but I’m just anal that way! As it stands, I did do one of them anyway! (I probably need to get this particular disorder looked into!) And in retrospect, I may have gotten a little sloppy on her neck area, but if one hadn’t seen the first version one probably couldn’t tell!



It appears that you have a 5:4 crop going on! Nice! I did a little crop just to see how getting her eyes closer to the upper third would play keeping your same aspect.



So hey Travis? If I've overstepped here, or if these suck, or both, I'll be more than happy to pull 'em with my most sincere apologies.

Either way you have a very nice shot here, Travis!

[travis4567]

Thanks Terry ..always open to suggestions, that's why I post here. Problem with the second crop is her head is cropped off.
She's a very shy little girl and I did all I could do to get her to pose for me..we were at a party and I asked her mom if I could take some photos of her and of course she agreed. I only had a few minutes and got very few shots. This was one of the last ones. Her expression says to me "Are you done yet" Hopefully I can get her in a serious portrait setting and get her to open up a bit. What a great face ..thanks again.
Travis

[Loose Canon]

Her expression says to me "Are you done yet" Hopefully I can get her in a serious portrait setting and get her to open up a bit. What a great face ..thanks again.
Travis

I usually get a lot of that preceded by the all-too-familiar “not again with the stupid camera” look!

This little girl would be a joy to have in front of a lens and with a face like that she is definitely “portfolio” stuff!

Not to mention a thrilled Moms and Grandpa!

As for the crop, I wasn’t real sure if I liked it so much that way or not either, but there are a couple of options there at your same ratio. I noticed a nice ultra tight one with a portrait aspect crop, too. I might add that for a party setting I think you did a great job of getting a really good background. Not always an easy thing to do off the cuff for sure!

Please post generously Travis if you get a chance at her in your portrait setting. I will be looking forward to seeing Friend’s Granddaughter again!