Theme: Superheroes...

[IzzieK]

These two are cell phone shots...the church held a superhero theme for the last two months and my granddaughter wear socks that relates to the superheroes...I didn't take these shots but I edited it for my DIL for show. Both shots are full shots...no cropping on my part...I'd like to know how to improve these as I am not yet an accomplished portrait person...I used Photoshop to adjust only the white and black points...Please advise...

1 The future activist...There is something I really do not know how to improve the highlights on her face...she looks awful but I like the shot...



2 More cute-er here but I still have to work out her face...I thought I did this well but now that I have uploaded it, it looks strange...



3

[Geoff F]

Face seems reasonably OK to me; but are the reds over saturated?

[FootLoose]

Hi Izzie, I think Geoff has nailed the problem - over-saturated reds. I don't know what the actual colour of the dress looks like, but it has lost some detail in these shots. If you drop the saturation, the folds and creases in the material become apparent.

The easiest way to deal with that is to open a HSL layer and click the eye-dropper on the skin tones, then slide to the left til you achieve a tone you like in her face. This will reduce the saturation of all the reds in the image, of course, so invert the mask and paint it back into her face. You can do the same for the dress.

Similarly, with the highlights. I would open a curves layer, and pull the curve down til the highlights become acceptable. Then invert and paint back in where you want them.

My very quick efforts for illustration of what I am saying:

[Kris V]

Hi Izzie,
Your granddaughter is a little cutie!

[Shadowman]

As an avid Spiderman fan, I salute her choice in socks. Nice captures, don't worry too much about perfection, these are perfect as is.

[rpcrowe]

These shots show your grand daughter in a wonderful light! She is a sweetie!

[Stagecoach]

Priceless images Izzie and well worth the effort of the PP Greg has done.

[IzzieK]

Thanks Geoff...I saw your post last night and went to work on the saturation using the Hue and Saturation effects in Photoshop and I almost achieved the same face colour as Greg did but I think his edit is more like it than mine did...I have to make comparisons in daylight as soon as I can when I go to my laptop...

Thanks Greg for the edit and how to. I will have to try your method if I can.....Bill loves your edit too. Now I am embarrassed to show mine to him...

Thanks Kris...yes...but I am biased...she is the only one too. Skype time yesterday afternoon and since it was morning her time, she wants to go down for her breakfast at first then started singing and dancing later on, she is so moveable, hard for my DIL following her around their bedroom. This is what I was telling Greg about swimming across the pond to really cuddle her...can't do it on Skype...lucky are those who have them around not to far away...

John (Shadowman) she will love you too for having Spiderman as your favourite...she has other shots sent to me but I like these two better...I immediately wrote to my DIL about the "future activist" shot...

Richard, thanks to you too for commenting...wait till she grows up...I will be gone by then...

Grahame, yes I believe too that it is worth the pp that Greg did...'wish I know how to invert and paint...I have not tried that...

Thanks all for your feedback and comments I do appreciate it a lot...

[FootLoose]

...'wish I know how to invert and paint...I have not tried that...

...

If you're using PS on windows: after you make the adjustment, hit ctrl I to invert ( which masks out the adjustment) then select the paintbrush tool and set it to the opposite colour (black or white) of the adjustment layer and paint the adjustment back in where you want it.

[IzzieK]

If you're using PS on windows: after you make the adjustment, hit ctrl I to invert ( which masks out the adjustment) then select the paintbrush tool and set it to the opposite colour (black or white) of the adjustment layer and paint the adjustment back in where you want it.

Thanks Greg...I use PS on windows. I know how to convert but haven't done your method here...even if I have had PS since version 4 and before they add the 'C' at the end...I will give it a try...thanks for the tip...'appreciate it very much.

[gregj1763]

What a gorgeous little girl Izzie, I love the joy and cheekiness in her face.
A lot to look forward to watching her grow up. Great photos

[chauncey]

IMHO...I might have first tried improving the WB in LR using the WB color picker.
You were there...what are your neutral grays...white tennis shoes in the shadows maybe.
Moving that color picker around on your image will preview itself in the preview image window in LR.
Additionally...using the Auto White Balance feature sometimes coughs out decent results.

[KimC]

Your granddaughter is one happy, beautiful girl Izzie.

[IzzieK]

IMHO...I might have first tried improving the WB in LR using the WB color picker.
You were there...what are your neutral grays...white tennis shoes in the shadows maybe.
Moving that color picker around on your image will preview itself in the preview image window in LR.
Additionally...using the Auto White Balance feature sometimes coughs out decent results.

Thanks for the feedback, William -- I do not use Lightroom because I have Photoshop.I wouldn't have a clue how to use it. I am partial to Auto White Balance. I tried it in ACR and it gave me a blue-ish result so I chose Cloudy as it gave me more warm-ist colour, Shade also is more warm, but since the atmosphere is inside the church and tungsten gave more blue-ish colour, I did not want to use it. I chose the best I can remember of that church atmosphere. Actually the place is more like a creche where the churchgoers leave their kids while they attend the service and Anika is only 2.5 years old and doesn't mind being left there...she knows everyone there...maybe I can try your advice in Photoshop?

[IzzieK]

Your granddaughter is one happy, beautiful girl Izzie.

That she is...very cheeky too. Talked to her on Skype last Saturday and she knows she is the star of the show...Thank you for your feedback...and I am of course, biased.

[xpatUSA]

Both shots are full shots...no cropping on my part...I'd like to know how to improve these as I am not yet an accomplished portrait person...I used Photoshop to adjust only the white and black points...Please advise...

1 The future activist...There is something I really do not know how to improve the highlights on her face...she looks awful but I like the shot...

Hi Izzie,

As others have said, the problem is in the reds. That skirt does have detail as shown by an app. called ShowImage which displays RGB but ignores the color space (more about that below):



To me, the skin tones look more natural in the RGB composite at right.

More to the point, the Adobe XMP meta-data shows some significant settings:

Exposure +0.85
Contrast +28
Highlights -63
Shadows +64
Whites -2
Blacks -26
Clarity +26
Camera Profile: "embedded" . . . hmmm . . .

. . . and to top it off, the image got saved with an ICC ProPhoto profile embedded! Theoretically, that should make no difference but I've read that there is a difference between assigning and converting color spaces, which might be a factor. Adobe aficionados will be able to tell you more about that.

Like many shots, the captured moment here far outweighs the image quality

Do you still have the un-edited out-of-camera original to post on Drop Box or somewhere?

[bnnrcn]

She is so cute

[IzzieK]

Thanks Ted. Thanks Binnur -- she sure is as cute as can be...she looks more like her mother though...

Ted, your input is appreciated. As I can see, the RGB input is not as good as what Greg (Footloose) did with the image to correct it. Remember this is not my image, but her mother's and she shot it with her iphone so I only get to edit a jpeg image from it. I gave her a link to this page to look at and we both agreed that Greg's edit is exactly the colour of her dress. I got to saturate her face on my first edit but I wasn't happen with the way her dress is too much the colour of her face and too bright so I asked for help...

Thank you both for commenting and giving me a feedback...

[Benjy]

Yes Izzie,she,s a wee belter.....

[IzzieK]

Yes Izzie,she,s a wee belter.....

Thanks Benjy...I am very biased so I would agree with you...thanks for viewing. 'Appreciate it very much.