Lovely young woman with beautiful hair. IMO her arm bothers me somewhat. It is brighter than her face and attracts my eye too much...
I used Viveza and grouped a couple of control points along her arm and then reduced the brightness by 20% which seemed to work...
+1 to Richard's comment on the arm. It is definitely cause some problems. Being the brightest part of the image, it get's the viewer's attention rather than your model's face. Burning that down in post-production would definitely help.
The other issue with the arm is the awkward crop. It is done at a place where you have cut right through the hand. If you are cropping limbs, this has to be done where it looks good, generally above the joint. This cannot be fixed in post and had to be done at capture.
I'm also not sure why you decided to do a "Dutch tilt" here. That technique is often used to break up a scene with lots of horizontal and vertical lines. It can work in other shooting situations as well, but here it just adds to the overall awkwardness of the scene.
Great shot and well captured. Agree with comments abut the arm being a bit too overexposed. Recently I chucked Photoshop and moved to Luminar and ON10. Not plugging them as software as yet to make up my mind as to their worth. But to round off a long winded story, ON10 has a free training video on tackling this particular portrait problem which also deals with bringing out the beauty of the eyes. Can give you further details if you are interested.
Just a small inconsequential point. Have you looked at cropping just a tad of the dead space from RHS of frame?
All of this said IMHO. Well, maybe I should take out the H, as I do not seem to have been humble in expressing my opinion on what is really a very nice capture. Portraits are never easy.
I never new what a Dutch tilt is. Almost sounds a disgusting practice. But be that as it may, this works for me in this case. My reaction is that of having a spontaneous close interaction between the subject and myself, sharing a private moment together.
Last edited by ucci; 16th August 2018 at 01:07 AM. Reason: addendum
Hope you don't mind my impertinence. But does this explain better what I was trying to convey in my previous response? Just to maybe give you another perspective. Or have I once again lost the plot? You have to accept that I am not nearly as talented as these other guys who I reckon have probably forgotten more about photography than I will ever know.
Last edited by ucci; 16th August 2018 at 06:55 AM.