"School of Portraiture" - Lesson 08 - Taking it to the next level ("The Reunion")

[Sam Smith]

Hi Sam,

Technically good (to my inexperienced eyes), with the exception that I think it would stand 1/3 to 1/2 stop more exposure. I know without a peak white in shot it is easy to over expose skin tones, but I think this is just a little too cautious - you might need to apply that just to her face and hold back the tree trunk though.

Looking at the shot as a whole, I would have excluded, or cloned out, the tree trunk in top left corner. Also, there's a brighter background patch below that trunk on left that I'd dim down some more.

Also (2) there's a bit of patterned shirt/jacket extending right down to the lower edge of frame that pulls the eye down there and out.

It looks like you were both having fun on the shoot, so well done on getting a good relaxed expression from your model and the balance of flash and ambient is very natural, with no dark shadows either.

Personally, I'd score it 8/10, but I don't do portraits
and I certainly don't have your skill with flash, but I can appreciate the result

Cheers,

Here are the changes as you mentioned. As you will my cloning and replacement PP skills are lacking.

[Sam Smith]

Thanks Colin. You have been a great teacher.

[bhumil]

Hey,

I just joined this forum...i started to go through the tutorials you had posted...they are really awesome...you have done an excellent job....So coming back to the pics...these pics i have taken before i joined this forum and i haven't done any editting probably because i just loved it the way it is...(but i wanted to know from someone who knows the photography)...just so u know i am really amature at this...i got my camera 6 months ago and started to play with it...and i am about to join the classes since i like to take photos....

Photo 1:Nice back ground is blur...it will be nice if i can get no hands in back....on the eye i got flash...nice contrast of color through the pics...


Photo 2: Nice background....but as u said earlier it would be nice if i had eyes on the center....


Photo 3: again the flash in the eye....and i think it is too much close up but i fell its
just cute pic.....:-)

[daxi]

hello, I´m delighted to see your fotos and to read your comments. So I´d try to present one of my portraits. I just started portrait photography with the help of a few friends and enjoy it very much; but ...it´s not easy. So I´d appreciate a comment.
I like the natural light, the background and of course the color of my models eyes, I´m not sure, wheather the fotos is too dark in total or, whether I should have cloned more of the skin details, or...

[Kalyn]

Hey all!

So I just finished reading the first few lesson and would love to get some feedback.



This was my first "formal" portrait session with my son. I feel it has nice balance/color; however, I am unsure about the lighting. I feel detail is lost on the right side of his face where it's darker. I used only natural light by our sliding glass door. Maybe a reflector would have helped? I feel like the eyes could have better lighting, too. That would help enhance the focus on his eyes.

As far as positioning... the fact that his shoulders aren't all in the photo makes it feel unbalanced to me!

Thanks in advance!

[speedneeder]

Colin isn't on too much lately, but I suspect he will be with you shortly.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Myra,

Looks pretty good to me - right or wrong, here's a few minor things I'd change ...

- Skin tones are pushed a little hard - I'd pull them back a touch and compensate for the lowered midtones with a touch of fill light

- I'd crop a little more dark space away from the top/left

- Slight output sharpen

- Kill the unsightly distracting watermark at bottom right (why would you want to draw the eyes away from the face towards it?)

Here's a quick retouch (sans watermark removal) ...

[Colin Southern]

Here are the changes as you mentioned. As you will my cloning and replacement PP skills are lacking.

Hi Sam,

Looks good - except - it look s "flat as a pancake". I've uncreased the basic exposure 2 stops - pulled back the midtones (brightness) - and applied a subtle vignette ... What do you think?

(oops - to be uploaded shortly - uploader still not working!)

[Vicky]

I just watched a tutorial about portraits. For women, the back of the hand should never be shown especially near the face because it looks almost as big as the face itself. I love how you captured her blue, blue eyes!

[Sam Smith]

Colin,
Thanks. Yours looks much better than mine. The area of fine "tuning" the final result is where I am struggling at. For some reason I don't always see the subtle differences. I will keep doing it until one day I can get it right.
On a personnel note, I would like to thank you for all the time and work put into this course as it has been a great help and inspiring us to try to take our work to another level.

[Maritimer1]

Colin, thank you!!


Myra

[Colin Southern]

Colin, Thanks. Yours looks much better than mine. The area of fine "tuning" the final result is where I am struggling at. For some reason I don't always see the subtle differences. I will keep doing it until one day I can get it right. On a personnel note, I would like to thank you for all the time and work put into this course as it has been a great help and inspiring us to try to take our work to another level.

No worries Sam. One of the "Pro secrets" I like to employ in post-processing is to push the exposure at least a stop over a "correctly exposed" shot, and then pull back the midtones (looking for correct skin detail). Spotting subtle differences IS difficult, and I think it only comes with practice practice and more practice -- post-processing has a learning curve that's just as steep as the camera/equipment side of things. In the case of your shot above though - assuming that you've working from a profiled screen - it really should have looked waaaay too under-cooked; admittedly skin tones (which account for the majority of the higher tones in the image) aren't highlights, but I think if you looked at your histogram you'd see it stopped well short of the right-hand side (generally a good warning side). I always do a control-L (Levels) as one of the last things I do, to ensure I'm pushing things sufficiently -- usually I'll bring in the highlight clipping point and toggle the preview off and on to see if I like the new settings better, and then apply them if I do like them beter.

[speedneeder]

No worries Sam. One of the "Pro secrets" I like to employ in post-processing is to push the exposure at least a stop over a "correctly exposed" shot, and then pull back the midtones (looking for correct skin detail). Spotting subtle differences IS difficult, and I think it only comes with practice practice and more practice -- post-processing has a learning curve that's just as steep as the camera/equipment side of things. In the case of your shot above though - assuming that you've working from a profiled screen - it really should have looked waaaay too under-cooked; admittedly skin tones (which account for the majority of the higher tones in the image) aren't highlights, but I think if you looked at your histogram you'd see it stopped well short of the right-hand side (generally a good warning side). I always do a control-L (Levels) as one of the last things I do, to ensure I'm pushing things sufficiently -- usually I'll bring in the highlight clipping point and toggle the preview off and on to see if I like the new settings better, and then apply them if I do like them beter.

Good stuff, thanks for sharing

[mikemm55555]

Hello colin,
Im a very amateur photographer just out of high school trying to teach myself. Im not sure if your still on the thread but I'm just putting this up to hear your thoughts.

I feel that the picture may have gotten carried away with saturation, and also the lens flair is far from professional. The placement of the subject may be a bit to centered, i tried cropping but lost quality when i got it to where i felt it was right.

[IMG][/IMG]

Thanks for any ideas

[Colin Southern]

Hello colin,
Im a very amateur photographer just out of high school trying to teach myself. Im not sure if your still on the thread but I'm just putting this up to hear your thoughts.

I feel that the picture may have gotten carried away with saturation, and also the lens flair is far from professional. The placement of the subject may be a bit to centered, i tried cropping but lost quality when i got it to where i felt it was right.

[IMG][/IMG]

Thanks for any ideas

Hi Mike,

Yep, still on the thread, but struggling to keep up just at the moment

My style of portraiture could probably be classed as "conventional", whereas this type could probably be described as "unconventional". Not meaning that in a bad way (far from it), but it does make it hard for me to comment on because it's so far outside my usual area of expertise. So on one hand I could look at it and think "the flare causes artifacts and lack of contrast" whereas on the other hand, one might argue that the flare is an artistic choice -- and both of us would be right.

Personally, I like the lighting on the young lady's hair -- I'm not sure how you've lit the face, but the levels look OK. Yes, the green is highly saturated, but not (quite) "over the top". The focus looks too soft (may be a sharpening issue, but more than likely an AF issue as shooting into the sun generally drives AF units nuts).

Personally, I occasionally shoot into the sun to get rim lighting - lalance out the shadow side (towards the camera) with some fill light - but avoid getting the sun in the shot. In terms of composition, I probably wouldn't put the subject in the center like this.

This is a shot I took with similar lighting, albeit without naked sun in the shot (using a longer lens makes this easier to avoid). You can see that I've hit it with a fair amount of fill light to balance it out ...

[daxi]

hello Colin, I´m new here and don´t know what to do exactly; I understand, that you are quite busy at the moment. Maybe my photo just escaped our attention...(17th january).
May I ask you again for a critic, I´m first time presenting a photo and a little bit unsure...thank you...by the way, I like the page a lot, its been very helpful for me

[Colin Southern]

hello Colin, I´m new here and don´t know what to do exactly; I understand, that you are quite busy at the moment. Maybe my photo just escaped our attention...(17th january).
May I ask you again for a critic, I´m first time presenting a photo and a little bit unsure...thank you...by the way, I like the page a lot, its been very helpful for me

Hi Rose,

Yes - sorry - that one slipped through the cracks

It looks good to me, although personally, I'd reveal more shadow detail in the hair (it still needs to be dark to provide contrast, but I think more detail would be pleasing), and in the eyes too. I tried playing with the levels, but unfortunately the file is too fragile to withstand any heavy editing.

Did you shoot it RAW?

Are you working from a profiled monitor?

[bhumil]

Hey,

I just joined this forum...i started to go through the tutorials you had posted...they are really awesome...you have done an excellent job....So coming back to the pics...these pics i have taken before i joined this forum and i haven't done any editting probably because i just loved it the way it is...(but i wanted to know from someone who knows the photography)...just so u know i am really amature at this...i got my camera 6 months ago and started to play with it...and i am about to join the classes since i like to take photos....

Photo 1:Nice back ground is blur...it will be nice if i can get no hands in back....on the eye i got flash...nice contrast of color through the pics...


Photo 2: Nice background....but as u said earlier it would be nice if i had eyes on the center....


Photo 3: again the flash in the eye....and i think it is too much close up but i fell its
just cute pic.....:-)

i dont know who was that guy? and i dont even know how did it appear there...sorry guys...:-(

[daxi]

hello Colin,
thank you for your answer. Yes, I shoot in RAW, but this image is heavily processed already. I´ll have a look at the original file and try the details in the hair. That with calibrating the monitor did occur to me as well, I find the colors difficult to distinguish in Lightroom and PS, I thought, it´s called "age"?
I´m working on an old imac, tried once to calibrate it ( with "one i") and failed, never tried again...
thank you so far, I´ll be back soon, regards

[Akrozia]

Dear Colin,
thank you for all your effort! I'm totally new in photography and I'm using this website and forum for learning and inspiration. Many of your advises posted here becomes my main tools later in my practice, thank you very much.

Now to my question. Yesterday I make this shot and I'm very happy with the result. I would like to print it on the canvas but before that I would like to hear your comments. Is there something I can do to make this picture looks better. This will be my first print and I'm not sure what size will be optimal for this image.

My thoughts:
1. I think that the face of my daughter (the child in the picture) should be more sharp
2. I'm not sure about the lava lamp... is it too bright...?
3. Maybe it will be better if i decrease the saturation over the faces... they will become in more natural color... but I'll loose the warmth in the picture.

Thank you very much in advance!

Best regards