Happy Couple

[Andrew76]

Hey everyone - I was able to sneak a couple of pics at a wedding recently. Here's one I kind of like, but is there anything you can think I should do to make it better?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[FootLoose]

Tell the guy to take his hands out of his pockets.

[Andrew76]

Hind sight....

[nimitzbenedicto]

Awesome.

(perhaps, brighten up bride.)

[Andrew76]

Good call Victor, I think I'll try that right now. Thanks for having a peek!

[Loose Canon]

Hi Andrew!

I’d toss out a couple of thoughts if you don’t mind to see if you think they have any merit!

Maybe a little warping to straighten the railing behind the B&G, the doors, and the top door frame. (Might have to lower the contrast and brighten the B&G a bit after this operation.)

Crop down to the top moulding of the door frame.

A little vignette to help your nice door frame framing of the Happy Couple.

And a bit of local sharpening of B&G?

[Andrew76]

Thanks Terry! I'm going to try those tonight.

The only thing I'm not sold on is the crop. I like the idea, and I realize that the extra bit of ceiling does nothing for the photo, but I don't want to lose the 4:3 crop, and I don't want to take any off of the sides.... But I'll give it a try!

[Shadowman]

Nicely done, I'd consider cropping below the door handle where it exits the frame of the photo.

[Andrew76]

Hey John, thanks for the advice - I'll give it a try, and see how it looks!

[AB26]

Hi Andrew,

My 5c worth.
I think it is a lovely classic wedding shot.

Agreed with Terry and you might consider cropping away the glass of the doors, framing them. Not cropping away the doors, only the glass. You might need a bit of lens correction to do it.
Something worries me. There seem to be lots of spots on the bride and groom that do not show in the rest of the image. What could that be?

Lighter or darker depends on what you would like it to look like. It is a matter of some people preferring “high key” wedding shots and others preferring “low key” shots. It seems to be a trend to shoot “overexposed” when doing a wedding.

I don’t agree with Greg about his hands in his pockets. It also seems to be “cool” to shoot men with their hands in their pockets. You know why Grandma always threatened us to sew up our pockets if she saw us with hands in pockets.

A shot I would have been proud of.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Andrew,

A shot I would have been proud of.

It certainly is a very nice shot of a relaxed moment in what was otherwise a hectic day. Worth doing properly in PP, so I hope you don't mind me being really picky with the following;

Agreed with Terry and you might consider cropping away the glass of the doors, framing them. Not cropping away the doors, only the glass. You might need a bit of lens correction to do it.

I agree, while looking at lens corrections (for minor perspective tweaks), you might also want to look at fixing the CA (Chromatic Aberration), it isn't enormous, but if you have Photoshop CS6, CC or LR5, it is easily done.

Something worries me. There seem to be lots of spots on the bride and groom that do not show in the rest of the image. What could that be?

I hadn't initially noticed this, but since Andre mentioned it, I see it now - I'd suggest it looks like the B&G may have been selectively sharpened and that has brought up some noise.
That said, it looks like it has been raining - they didn't get caught in a shower and splashed did they? (e.g. the bottom edge of the dress looks a bit dark)

Crop wise, I'll just say I do wish the B&G were a bit larger in the frame, although I can understand your current crop for leading lines, etc.

Hope that helps,

[Dusty]

Crop wise I would crop to the outside of the door frames and the top of the image I would crop it down so you don't see that roof and with the doors cropped you have a nice frame round the couple. I think the spots on the dress are part of the decorations on the dress. As for the railings, strange, because if I take the image up by scrolling the top part of the roof cladding is straight but scroll up again to the railings and they are at a slope. But if you crop like I say and then you can correct the railings sloping.
Dave.

[Andrew76]

Gentlemen! Thanks very much for your time, and advice!

Andre, I always appreciate your feedback - honest, kind, and helpful. I have tried some of the crops suggested, and I think I will agree with you here. If I have time tonight, I'm going to try to post a re-processed image. As for the spots, I'm not entirely sure - but I'll go back and have a look at the original to see if they're there.

Dave, I don't mind at all. Picky is what I'm looking for! Consider CA fixed in my next edit. I didn't even notice to be quite frank. Again, I am not sure about the spots that Andre had pointed out. I did NOT selectively sharpen B+G, but I did sharpen the whole image - and there aren't spots in any other places. It did rain that day - in fact, it rained most of the day, and you are correct, the bride's dress is dirty on the bottom. But the spots you're seeing don't look like soil spots to me. They look like pixels, or something that's happened during processing. I'm going to start from scratch again, and take all of these suggestions into play. Then we'll see where the spots start appearing.

Dave - I'm going to try those crop suggestions tonight. I'm hoping the perspective issues you're seeing are going to be fixed with the crops, like you suggest, or at least by fixing some of the CA that the other Dave suggested I look into.

Thanks again guys!