My son and his fiancee wanted their pictures taken in the flowers in the Galveston cemetery. I tried to tell them I still have a lot to learn about shooting portraits, but since my fee was right (free) they wanted to try. The top image was just a grab shot while they were being silly, acting like gophers I think! My son has blue eyes and he could not open his eyes all the way even when in the shade, poor thing; I guess light colored eyes are more sensitive to bright light. The next day they came over to visit and my son had gotten the haircut he needed BEFORE the photo session. Well, all I can say is it looked great.Camera info: Nikon D200, 24-70 mm 2.8 lens. Top image f4 at 1/400th, bottom image f4.5 at 1/200th, ISO 100, fineweather whitebalance
Post processing: top image: reduced hot spots on faces with clone brush in darken mode, ran China Doll action from Kubota for skin smoothing and midtone brightening, the Edge for sharpening, the Icing for a little more contrast. Bottom image: cloned out distractions, duplicated that layer in softlight at 40% opacity, the Edge for sharpening, China Doll for skin smoothing.
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ReplyDeleteCindi, I like both of these images. You are not giving yourself enough credit.
ReplyDeleteThe only change that I would make to the top image is I would crop out or clone out the dark green. I think removing that would greatly simplify the photo--two ideas (that's about all I can handle) the flowers and the your two subjects.
On the bottom image, I would probably try to make your subjects come forward by making the background slightly darker--maybe by duplicating the layer and then changing to multiple mode and masking them out. You will not need to make it much darker, just a little. That way your subjects would "pop" from the background. This would also help control two colors that find very difficult to control--red and yellow!
Again, these are good portraits, with very good composition.
Please note, I did not recommend the use of any flashes in either of my comments! Probably a first for me!
PS-I have no idea of how I removed my original comment, so here it is again.
Cindi, I absolutely love the first photo and I really hope they use that somewhere for a bridal shower invite or something. That is just too cute and gives them such personality. Great composition! You are doing so much better than you think you are!
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