Indoor day

[Evertking]

I planned on doing an "on location" session today and practice blending ambient and flash but things happened and we'll...
I set up a backdrop and still got in some practice. I think I done this right. I worked within my sync speed and set up my camera to get a black frame.




I could not figure out how that shadow was getting on her collar bone and just noticed I left the corner of the box in that one picture.

[Evertking]

I love this picture but I thing I missed focus and it's over exposed. Does anyone think this could be saved?

I don't see how you can miss focus at f8

[Stagecoach]

I love this picture but I thing I missed focus and it's over exposed. Does anyone think this could be saved?

Mike, can you explain why you think it's overexposed?

I'm assuming you are referring to the posted image and not the file before any PP work was undertaken.

I ask because it does not look overexposed to me, but we may be thinking different interpretations of the term 'overexposed'.

[Shadowman]

I like the black and whites in this series, nicely done.

[billtils]

Agree with the positive comments on the B&Ws, especially the first two.

As Grahame points put we can't really say much about the last one re exposure since we don't have any info on the original and what if anything you did in processing. One thing that did strike me is that the composition has resulted in it looking almost as if it has been cropped at the left (as you look at it) shoulder.

[Evertking]

Not sure as to why it's rotated. I know it's not the best image, she has her play dress on that she "helped" her mother sew, the focus looks soft and it looks at touch overexposed but I could be wrong. It's just my little girl and I love it.
I would love to have e to PS skills to fix this up.

[Manfred M]

Not sure as to why it's rotated. I know it's not the best image, she has her play dress on that she "helped" her mother sew, the focus looks soft and it looks at touch overexposed but I could be wrong. It's just my little girl and I love it.
I would love to have e to PS skills to fix this up.

First of all, the view of over / underexposure is really looked at by viewing the histogram of the image and looking for crushed shadow detail (there seems to be a tiny bit in the uploaded jpeg, but nothing major) and clipped highlights (there are none) and a general look at the distribution of the histogram. Based on what I see (a screen shot of the image open in Photoshop), suggests that the exposure is good. What I would recommend is the use of some fill light. The lighting you are using is too dramatic for women and children; a white reflector on the camera right side, just out of the camera frame would fix a lot of issues with this shot. The harsh shadows on the neck and the eyes can be fixed this way.




As for softness of the image, yes it is there, but a bit of sharpening will help here. I suspect missed focus; what focusing mode are you using? For most of my portraiture work, I use a single focus point and will focus on the eye closest to the camera and will lock focus / exposure and recompose.