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gbounce Offline • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #1 · Family Portrait Would you do anything different? Is there something I could do to make it pop a little more? Had a flash camera right with umbrella. Dec 28, 2012 at 09:05 PM

Camperjim Offline • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #2 · Family Portrait Everyone is leaning in tight so I would suggest taking advantage of that and cropping out extraneous elements on the sides and bottom of the image to leave mostly faces with lights and decorations as a background. You can also try darkening the background to hold the attention on the faces. I would duplicate the image, set to multiply, select the opacity to leave the background fairly dark and then select a layer mask and paint on the mask to lighten the faces. I don't have time to work this image but you should have little difficulty bringing in a bit more pop. Dec 28, 2012 at 09:47 PM

ben egbert Online • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #3 · Family Portrait Much better than my family pictures. So I am just tagging along to see what is suggested. Dec 28, 2012 at 10:03 PM

gbounce Offline • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #4 · Family Portrait thanks for that. would it have been better to bump up the shutter speed a bit to kill more of the ambient to achieve some of what you're suggesting in photoshop, and maybe add a 1/3 exposure to the flash? this was my second family portrait, first with more than 3 people. it feels a bit limiting with what you can do as far as lighting goes. almost forced to have flat, even/boring lightning, unless you want to cover someone with shadows. Camperjim wrote: Everyone is leaning in tight so I would suggest taking advantage of that and cropping out extraneous elements on the sides and bottom of the image to leave mostly faces with lights and decorations as a background. You can also try darkening the background to hold the attention on the faces. I would duplicate the image, set to multiply, select the opacity to leave the background fairly dark and then select a layer mask and paint on the mask to lighten the faces. I don't have time to work this image but you should have little difficulty bringing in a bit more pop. Dec 28, 2012 at 10:54 PM

AuntiPode Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #5 · Family Portrait Posing suggestions: 1 - Turn head right & lower chin to avoid glare on glasses. 2 - Straighten head and lower chin for more flattering pose. 3 - Place hands in lap to allow tighter crop without cutting off hands. 4 - Tip head towards group along axis marked. 5 - Move camera slightly to the right to bring plane of sensor closer to actual plane of grouped subjects. Post processing suggestions: 6 - Slightly increase the hue to remove slight magenta excess in skin tone. 7 - Crop tighter, unless you intend to print rather large. 8 - Select face & reduce ruddiness. Other nits: 9 - Be wary of background details. 10 - Use DOF to place background in something less than sharp focus. 11 - Might also consider retouching to slightly whiten the teeth (not illustrated). 12 - Boost exposure slightly. 13 - Sharpen slightly. 14 - Open shadows on subject. Dec 28, 2012 at 11:08 PM

Mister Bean Offline • • • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #6 · Family Portrait I tried cropping as suggested above, but didn't find anything I liked. I would actually prefer if it was slightly wider so that you can fit all of the people in front into the frame. Focus seems to be off slightly. The tree is very sharp, and the people are less so. It might be worth moving everyone forward a bit, so that you can throw the background further out of focus. This would also mean that you'd have less flash hitting the tree, so it will be a bit darker and fade into the background better. Dec 28, 2012 at 11:17 PM

gbounce Offline • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #7 · Family Portrait awesome, thanks for all the suggestions! ya, there was very little space to work in. it was shot at 31 mm with me as far back as possible, i wish i could've controlled the background a bit better. with everything so close together i was afraid of opening up the aperture anymore and possibly getting some of the group out of focus. Dec 29, 2012 at 12:07 AM

RustyBug Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #8 · Family Portrait Took a stab at it ... Couple things come to mind for me ... your exif says ISO 3200 and 1/60 @ 3.5. This is letting in a lot of ambient light that could be responsible for your color cast issues. My guess is that you've got tungsten lighting that is "adding red". I've tried to get the blacks neutral (shirt / pants) and the white stripe in dad's shirt neutral. Looking at the faces, dad's obviously too red/magenta. I'm guessing that the ambient tungsten, combined with his awkward positioning (see wrist/hand color also) is amplifying the color in his face. I'm not 100% confident in my colors (you might like them warmer), but cast removal is (imo) a necessary step to generating "pop" ... that and some additional sharpening. Edited Original Dec 29, 2012 at 12:36 AM

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