I was wondering if I could get some professional and brutal opinions on some of my recent portraits? Family and friends are way to biased to be objective. These are largely planned candid shots.
<edit> I'm viewing the thread using my laptop, not calibrated, and #'s 3 & 4 of your posts come closer to reality while #1 is washed out and #2 is probably closest to what it ought to be, at least IMO. Mine is washed out too (was re-worked on a calibrated monitor).
My point: get something to calibrate your monitor since while what you see (assuming non-calibrated) might be good, on a calibrated monitor it could very well be otherwise. Hope this makes sense...
If you are working at f:11, you need to have a great background. It's not the case in pictures 3 and 4.
The second picture has too much contrast in borders. It looks weird to me. Maybe you have put a extreme unsharpen mask, or you have taken the blacks up.
The first picture looks perfect and professional. Congratulations.
this is TERRIFIC advice!! Exactly what I was looking for.
This is my beautiful niece who I only get to see a few times a year so I've been taking as many shots as possible. As you can tell I'm fairly noob to SLR photography.
I've been trying to keep my aperture between 7.1-11 to ensure her whole face is in focus as to get the best from my lenses...but totally forgot/neglected the distracting backgrounds in 3 and 4. So thanks for pointing that out.
I have enormous difficulty with determining natural white balance. I usually use AWB, but I will use custom WB as I get a bit more experienced. I get so fixated and lost in the image that my objectivity goes out the window re: levels and colour balance and WB, not to mention sharpening and cropping.
Bob, I certainly don't mind you reworking the image, it looks like you've taken some of the colour saturation out of the image. Are there a set of golden rules for this or is it an experienced-based subjective opinion? I've always thought that if it looks good in photoshop, go ahead...but as I mentioned I get carried away.
Thanks & I just posted an edit to my first comments.
To answer your question, my workflow is undisciplined in that I generally go with what I think looks right. My software, NX2.2, allows me to save so I can alter steps later if need be, otherwise I am seldom able to replicate the exact editing sequence. I'm sure this approach offends the purists but it works for me
<edit> And personally, I am unable to discern color imbalance unless I have something with which I can compare so I often miss that, as Kaden K. often kindly corrects an image
great job on #1
good pose and the light looks natural
unfortunately the indoor ones looks like they are being lit by a computer screen this is probably due to the tungsten in the background. would look better if you balanced the ambient. also as noted above, too much dof on the interiors.
