Last night's photo shoot

[Markvetnz]

My daughter is back from the USA where is currently on a golf scholarship in Georgia. We finally got around to taking a few shots last night.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Mark,

Looks pretty good to me - I especially like the composition of #3.

Just a couple of things though - to my eye, they're looking a little soft - especially around the lips & teeth in #1 - you didn't acciddentally apply skin softening to those areas did you? Did you apply any output sharpening?

Since portraiture is about faces, I often like to put a broad vignette around photos like these (Filters -> Lens Correction -> Custom and set both vignette controls to about 25% of their scale as a starting point. Once that's applied, do a Ctrl + L and tweak the highlight and midtone clipping points for a bit more impact).

Good stuff

[Donald]

Looks pretty good to me - I especially like the composition of #3.

Ditto from me. A very nice set of images.

[ilovelucydog]

All three are nice. I love the hat in the first one, she must have a great personality. The third one catches my eye the most and made me want to look again.

You have a beautiful daughter! Congrats on the golf scholarship...she's not too terribly far from me.

[Markvetnz]

Hi Mark,

Looks pretty good to me - I especially like the composition of #3.

Just a couple of things though - to my eye, they're looking a little soft - especially around the lips & teeth in #1 - you didn't acciddentally apply skin softening to those areas did you? Did you apply any output sharpening?

Since portraiture is about faces, I often like to put a broad vignette around photos like these (Filters -> Lens Correction -> Custom and set both vignette controls to about 25% of their scale as a starting point. Once that's applied, do a Ctrl + L and tweak the highlight and midtone clipping points for a bit more impact).

Good stuff

Thanks for the tips Colin. I didn't soften the lips at all, but I didn't apply any additional capture sharpening on then either. I did on the eyes. Thanks for the vignetting tip. I rushed the pp on them a bit because we left on a holiday on the same day. It took me ages to convince her to pose. It was amazing to see the transformation in the images once she started enjoying it all. In the end I was the one who had to call it a night after about 600 shots. It's also interesting to see how few "keepers" you get of all the shots.

[Markvetnz]

All three are nice. I love the hat in the first one, she must have a great personality. The third one catches my eye the most and made me want to look again.

You have a beautiful daughter! Congrats on the golf scholarship...she's not too terribly far from me.

Thanks Mary. She really does have a joy for life. She is back off to college next Saturday for her sophomore year. Gosh - how time flies. I'm hoping to get over to a veterinary congress in Vegas next year and then pop over to the East Coast to watch a bit of golf.

[Colin Southern]

Thanks for the tips Colin. I didn't soften the lips at all, but I didn't apply any additional capture sharpening on then either. I did on the eyes. Thanks for the vignetting tip. I rushed the pp on them a bit because we left on a holiday on the same day. It took me ages to convince her to pose. It was amazing to see the transformation in the images once she started enjoying it all. In the end I was the one who had to call it a night after about 600 shots. It's also interesting to see how few "keepers" you get of all the shots.

Hi Mark,

You're welcome. If you like, flick me the RAW for #3 and I see if I can get it any better.

When I'm shooting I usually don't worry about the first couple of hundred frames - they're more to relax the model and test the lighting. I agree too - it's very easy to disqualify a photo on a number of grounds.