Very Nice - the best I've seen from you yet! Excellent exposures and I love the softlighting. 3 is my favorite.
Personally, I'd like you to choose between 1 and 2 - I'm guessing they're diferent crops of the same shot. I prefer 1.
Edit to add: One small thing - I think you could "pimp" the eyes just a little more and still get away with it. I also think # 3 could look really nice in BW. Really, nice work!
These are cute shots but I think you are still not getting enough light on the subject. These all look grayish to me with #3 being in the best shape.
It also seems like you may have your key a little too far off the camera axis and not enough light is getting into the eyes. This little cutie has gorgeous eyes, too, so getting some light in there would have really made these pop.
I would say the color balance is a little on the cool side, too, and that doesn't help the impression of gray.
Eyeball wrote:
These are cute shots but I think you are still not getting enough light on the subject. These all look grayish to me with #3 being in the best shape.
It also seems like you may have your key a little too far off the camera axis and not enough light is getting into the eyes. This little cutie has gorgeous eyes, too, so getting some light in there would have really made these pop.
I would say the color balance is a little on the cool side, too, and that doesn't help the impression of gray.
I'll disagree, somewhat; I think the bigger problem here is not exposure on the subject, but that the background is somewhat grey. If the background was evenly exposed and was consistently white, the overall exposure would feel better. Either another ligth on the background, or just cranking up your back ground light would have done this.
I'll disagree with you (benee) on this one. I think exposure is a problem with this set, very much so.
I have copied No.3 and literally dragged the exposure slider up in Aperture 3.... (I hope the OP doesn't mind). I think the difference speaks for itself.
I also added a touch of skin smoothing just to nudge out the small red blotches on the face, mainly around the mouth. I think this is now an extremely strong baby portrait indeed and would have no problem giving this image to a paying client of mine. (Maybe a smidgen of highlight recovery on the cheek but apart from that, spot on)
ct8282 wrote:
I'll disagree with you (benee) on this one. I think exposure is a problem with this set, very much so.
I have copied No.3 and literally dragged the exposure slider up in Aperture 3.... (I hope the OP doesn't mind). I think the difference speaks for itself.
I also added a touch of skin smoothing just to nudge out the small red blotches on the face, mainly around the mouth. I think this is now an extremely strong baby portrait indeed and would have no problem giving this image to a paying client of mine. (Maybe a smidgen of highlight recovery on the cheek but apart from that, spot on)...Show more →
And I'll respectfully disagree with you.... With your edit, the eyes and background are looking good, but the cheeks and forehead are totally blown. I think your global adjustments are a bit too much.
I mentioned earlier "pimping" the eyes more, by this I meant selectively sharpening/brightening the eyes. You can get brighter eyes without blowing 50% of her face.
The background can probably be brightened in post, but the better solution would have been additional background lighting so the background was white from the get go.
benee wrote:
And I'll respectfully disagree with you.... With your edit, the eyes and background are looking good, but the cheeks and forehead are totally blown. I think your global adjustments are a bit too much.
I mentioned earlier "pimping" the eyes more, by this I meant selectively sharpening/brightening the eyes. You can get brighter eyes without blowing 50% of her face.
The background can probably be brightened in post, but the better solution would have been additional background lighting so the background was white from the get go.
I totally agree that the best solution is ALWAYS to get the image as right as possible when you take the picture. PP is used for tweaking only and should never be used as a means of making pictures look how you intended from the shoot. If you are relying that much on PP you are not getting your photography right and need to re-evaluate things. I did mention that the cheeks are blown and need some highlight recovery. My point is that the 3 original images are clearly underexposed. My 20 second edit has improved the pictures I'm sure you will agree, from an exposure point of view.
I have applied an additional 20 second edit, to 'pimp' the eyes and recover the blown cheeks a little. Obviously if you spend a good 20 mins on these pictures with some finer tweeking they would be better, but I have literally spent nothing more than a minute on each.....
I personally believe that for this type of high key baby shot, bright almost blown skin is very effective.
See how much difference getting your main closer made? #3 is precious, especially after the edit here that bumped the exposure. Congrats, you're heading in the right direction!
ct8282 wrote:
I totally agree that the best solution is ALWAYS to get the image as right as possible when you take the picture. PP is used for tweaking only and should never be used as a means of making pictures look how you intended from the shoot. If you are relying that much on PP you are not getting your photography right and need to re-evaluate things. I did mention that the cheeks are blown and need some highlight recovery. My point is that the 3 original images are clearly underexposed. My 20 second edit has improved the pictures I'm sure you will agree, from an exposure point of view.
I have applied an additional 20 second edit, to 'pimp' the eyes and recover the blown cheeks a little. Obviously if you spend a good 20 mins on these pictures with some finer tweeking they would be better, but I have literally spent nothing more than a minute on each.....
I personally believe that for this type of high key baby shot, bright almost blown skin is very effective.
And i will say toyou, you are correct! Your second edit looks really good.... and my home-calibrated monitor shows that e originals were indeed underexposed. Looks like my monitor at work needs some help! Cheers!
This most recent comment may also pertain to the original poster. Because most of the images you post appear underexposed, it may be that your monitor is too bright. If so, what looks good to you is dark to anyone with a calibrated monitor. Have you ever calibrated it?
Steve Wylie wrote:
This most recent comment may also pertain to the original poster. Because most of the images you post appear underexposed, it may be that your monitor is too bright. If so, what looks good to you is dark to anyone with a calibrated monitor. Have you ever calibrated it?
I calibrated my monitor with what came with it...
But, I looked into calibration software and hardware..
From what I see, too many choices...
What is a good hardware, software setup that would work for a pc, running windows 7?
I am getting confused a little...
I do see how the actual baby is dark.. now that I see a brighter one..
but some times when I make the subject too bright.. it seems washed out..
I will have to study, examine the photos and edits.. and figure out how to proceed and do beter.
I have a huge shoot tomorrow
A 7 member family.. OMG, I hope I can remember to do all the right things..
And note..
I am almost convinced having this Sekonic l358 light meter is basically useless... better seems to be to use my meter in my camera and known settings like NOT GOING ABOVE F8 to get good narrow DOF.
That is why I was shooting up in f19 ... the meter called for it with my iso setting.
Not sure yet if I like having the light meter.. I am thinking it sucks!
There are several good monitor calibration systems out there. I use the Color Munki Pro by X-Rite, but the Spyder Pro by Datacolor is also good. As for your light meter, don't give up on it. I can't tell what you're doing with it, but it cannot be giving you readings that are as far off as your samples have been if you're using it correctly. Google "Sekonic I-358" and you'll see several tutorials and articles on how to use the meter properly.
alaskalive wrote:
I am getting confused a little...
I do see how the actual baby is dark.. now that I see a brighter one..
but some times when I make the subject too bright.. it seems washed out..
I will have to study, examine the photos and edits.. and figure out how to proceed and do beter.
I have a huge shoot tomorrow
A 7 member family.. OMG, I hope I can remember to do all the right things..
And note..
I am almost convinced having this Sekonic l358 light meter is basically useless... better seems to be to use my meter in my camera and known settings like NOT GOING ABOVE F8 to get good narrow DOF.
That is why I was shooting up in f19 ... the meter called for it with my iso setting.
Not sure yet if I like having the light meter.. I am thinking it sucks!
Been a while since I used a light meter but I don't remember it ever telling me what aperture to use. I seem to remember telling the meter what my shutter speed and aperture values were and the meter would then help me to set the flash output so that it was correctly exposed at those values.
And i will say toyou, you are correct! Your second edit looks really good.... and my home-calibrated monitor shows that e originals were indeed underexposed. Looks like my monitor at work needs some help! Cheers!
I have the same problem. Whenever I am viewing pics on my work computer they look completely different. Thanks for your comments.
To the OP, if you are able to see how my edit is an improvement over the originals then I don't believe your problem is necessarily that your monitor needs calibrating. Judging exposure is usually best done with the human eye. To me the original pictures you posted were clearly underexposed, it was the first thing that came to mind when I looked at your thread. Aside from the exposure the images are great, and you can see how an exposure adjustment and a little skin smoothing has made them extremely commercial pics that your client would be very happy with I'm sure.
It may help if you perhaps describe your camera settings and the process you go through when taking your meter readings and setting up your flash output and camera. I'm assuming that you are using your camera in full manual?
alaskalive wrote:
Not sure yet if I like having the light meter.. I am thinking it sucks!
Describe to us how you take a light reading.
From your posts I suspect your meter is fine and could be a valuable tool for you. The problem is, and there's no other way to put it, you don't know how to use it. I think to use a tool like a light meter you have to have some basic principles down pat. You also have to understand what the light meter is telling you. I won't even go into talking about calibrating the entire process, from camera and light meter to you post processing setup.
I think you need to postpone accepting paid work until you get a firmer grasp on the technical aspects. Once you've done that, we can start to work on lighting technique.
dmacmillan wrote:
Describe to us how you take a light reading.
From your posts I suspect your meter is fine and could be a valuable tool for you. The problem is, and there's no other way to put it, you don't know how to use it. I think to use a tool like a light meter you have to have some basic principles down pat. You also have to understand what the light meter is telling you. I won't even go into talking about calibrating the entire process, from camera and light meter to you post processing setup.
I think you need to postpone accepting paid work until you get a firmer grasp on the technical aspects. Once you've done that, we can start to work on lighting technique....Show more →
Agree with this. Your work has improved significantly over the past few weeks but there still seems to be a lack of comprehension of the basics such as aperture, shutter, iso etc and how these are related to each other and ultimately affect the way in which a photo will turn out. Its important to understand these things to the point where they are second nature.
Your eye for composition has improved considerably and the actual images you are capturing are very good. But the basics of exposure etc are still needing lots of improvement before you will start to see consistent results from your shoots.
With your edit, the eyes and background are looking good, but the cheeks and forehead are totally blown. I think your global adjustments are a bit too much.