Would like to get some critiques on my edit. This was a photo taken after the winter formal dance. Instead of having the regular photos by the "professionals" the couple came to me.
Let me know what you guys think and what you guys would do. I wanted it to be warm, so that's why it's really yellow. Overall, I'm satisfied with the image, but I'd like to see where others would take it.
Note: I think the girl's hands are awkward, but I still love the picture.
My impression is that there's more background context here than necessary to the point of distracting attention off the couple up into the corner to look at the umbrellas. The blown out area on the right is also a glaring distraction which pulls my attention off the couple.
As for the color balance, in person our brains "normalize" perception of things like white shirts and faces. So even in warm afternoon sun the shirt will seem white and the faces similar to how they look in the middle of the day in more neutral lighting. Simulation that perceptual dynamic in a photo requires shifting the background warmer than normal but keeping the faces in the foreground more or less neutral: a slight bit warmer than neutral but not as warm as the background. That's easily done by using flash in the foreground with custom WB off a gray card to capture the faces from a neutral "baseline" then in editing where you can see the color nuances adjust them warmer...
In the edit above made two copies of the photo and moved the umbrellas over, unifying them behind the couple compositionally which eliminates the ping-pong distraction, then cropped out the huge bright void on the right. The net result is the same location context provided by the umbrellas and background but in a non-distracting, unified way. That's something you could have done at capture by moving the couple in front of the umbrellas as I did in the edit.
For color balance I did what I suggested above, leaving the background as-is but making the faces and clothing more neutral. That was difficult given the bias in the original so cut me some slack with regards to the skintone in the edit which I did by eye with color balance.
For all the great attributes this shot has with the lighting, expressions on the mouths and the "you can lean on me" body language of the pose, the show-stopper is the his squinty eyes. If you have a similar shot with better eyes I would Photochop them into this shot, which is quite easy to do without anyone being the wiser.
RustyBug wrote:
I'm still not pleased with my work on this one and the mixed lighting is still in play ... but hopefully it illustrates a few things ...like the color of her hair.
This is a "compromise" effort ... so from here, you could easily apply the toning of your choice for your subjective style & taste ... but I wanted to (hopefully) show the diff @ his shirt and her hair.
FWIW — I'm seeing a strong yellow / olive green bias in your latest effort (right) compared to your file with +blue + magenta correction..
