My daughter at golden hour. CC Please.

[HijoD]

Hello all,

First want to say thank you for having me onboard. This is my first post on this site. I've found some very helpful information from this site while searching google so I thought this might be a great place to get some much needed critique.

I took this right at sunset with the last rays of sun hitting her in the face among some palm trees. I chose the jacket to keep the color palette consistent with the surroundings. I love the look I achieved but I am having a really hard time editing the color. The skin turned out to pink/orange due to the sun but when I bring back the magenta the entire shots turns way to green.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Please critique as much as possible, I welcome anything you can add. Thanks!

Processing: LR5 sharpened, lowered noise, lens correction, cropped a bit.
Canon 70D + Canon 24-105mm f/4.0L

Here is a link to a full res pic if you would like to mess with it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hijodmaite/12347635065/


ISO 640, 105mm, f/4.0, 1/200


untitled-33 by HijoDMaite, on Flickr

[Digital]

On the whole it is a nice photo. You may want change to a vertical (portrait) mode to eliminate the OOF tree. The thumbnail pic is, IMHO, a better photo.


Bruce

[Bobobird]

Welcome Javier.

Very nice shot and one she will cherish for a long long long time.

[Andrew76]

I like the thumbnail pick better too - compositionally, but I'm finding it much, much softer than #1. And for that, I'd choose #1 as the better of the two.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[chauncey]

Javier, the very first thing that I would have done would have been getting rid of the acne on the nose.

[FootLoose]

Javier, I copied your file to my desktop and just clicked the white balance eyedropper in the white of her right eye and that reduced the colour cast significantly.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Javier,

Have you tried, in ACR- HSL/Grayscale reducing the saturation of the orange and magenta?

That should get you a lot closer at least.

[HijoD]

@FootLoose: I didn't even think to do that. I was just playing with the sliders, this helps a lot thank you! I just started using LR5 less than a year ago. I had been using Adobe RAW and Bridge until I finally saw the light and switched over to LR5.

@Andrew76 You know it's funny you say that the thumbnail is softer. It's weird becasue if you take a look at the image I uploaded to flickr here: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3815/1...896fae5f_c.jpg it's sharp, but for some reason the image i uploaded as a thumb from my desktop seems softer. I don't know what is going on. Sometimes when I hit "F" to view and image full screen in LR5 it seems blurry, and sometimes it takes a few seconds to sharpen. Can anyone think what could be happening? Does Flickr auto sharpen images for web?

Anyway thank you for all the compliments. I am loving how active everyone is to critique on this site. I've been using FroKNowsPhoto to post for critique and it's not as active as I would prefer.

Cheers!

[AB26]

Hi Javier,

Overall, I think it is a very good portrait of your daughter.

The composition is good, the way she looks "into" the image, the way you handelend DOF to isolate her from the background is also very good. It was shot during “golden” hour and “correcting” skin tone is probably not exactly what you would want to do. The warmth of the golden hour makes the shot what it is. Removing just a tad of red, without losing the warmth, might enhance the image a little.

If the “zits” on her nose is not a permanent “feature” I would also remove it. Adding a tad of vignetting to the image makes her stand out a little more.

You do not always want a portrait to be tack sharp. A little softness in a portrait is, in most cases, preferable. If you are shooting an elderly man with lots of wrinkles(plenty of texture) you would like the image to be sharp to show off his wrinkles. (Never do it with ladies.)

Portraits are very personal and it is what the photographer wants that is most important. There is no right or wrong here, only what you would like the shot to look like.

I took the liberty to do this edit to show you what I mean. Hope you don't mind this edit!

[rpcrowe]

Lovely images of a very lovely young lady. I like the soft muted colors. Removal of the blemish on her nose really helps.

Young people can get really sensitive about skin blemishes and since these are not a permanent feature. IMO, they should be removed whenever possible...

[dedro]

very nice javier

[HijoD]

Hello all,

Sorry haven't been back to reply to your comments. I appreciate all the CC I've received. I was able to get a color balance that I was happy with while still maintaining the skin tone that represents sunset light. I actually have gotten a lot of good feedback on the second pic (the one in the attachment) people loved the color and composition. I landed a small gig because of it, yeah!

I should mention that in fact the mark on her nose IS permanent. it is a mole and is a sore subject with her so we don't bring it up much. She is 12 years old and her mom and I have agreed that we will probably have it removed for her but should probably wait until she is a little bit older.

In the meantime I just have to remember to shoot her from the other side as much as possible.

Thanks again and as a new member I am excited to post more.

JA