I wouldn't worry about the shadow as much as I'd worry about the subject being out of focus.

jdben622 wrote:
Hi Jim...it went down pretty much opposite of what you posted. The flash was positioned directly above the lens. I was in portrait and the bracket was flipped, which is why the catch light in her eyes is vertical and not horizontal...the flash flips, not the camera on the model I have. The key light was soft and to camera right, not left. The shadow is coming from my on-camera fill. Aside from using modifiers, I think I could have switched lenes and got in closer to her and/or dialed down the fill flash even more to help eliminate the shadow. I'm not terribly experience with this kind of shooting, so I was heavily focused on framing her versus overall composition and the details.
Well I was not there to see your setup.

But the light in your picture clearly shows shadows on the right.

They come from a light source on camera left. (From the sun, a speedlight, a car's headlights, or lightning - whatever. But clearly from the left.)

A light directly over the lens will not produce a shadow camera right (or left).

Control that light (reduce it or turn it off) and your problem will go away.

I hear you Jim. The ounce of prevention. My bracket functions similarly to yours, so I could indeed have had the camera in the portrait position, NOT flipped the bracket, and had the flash vertical to the left of the camera. In fact, since I have to manually move the bracket, it's safe to assume that's exactly what happened.

Iahcon wrote:
ok, so I am a little confused. Why is the shadow cast off vertical axis if your flash was in line with the lens? BTW great job 05titan.

The shadow must be from this:

Joe...it was much too cool and dark to not use a flash. Most of the light on her and spilling around her is coming from a speedlight shot into an umbrella about 5 feet on her left. In addition we were into our third hour of shooting. This was her final outfit change and final setting. We shot way too much compared to a focused shoot...she requested a lot of different "looks" to give to her agent to build her card with. Most of the shooting was done at a mission that didn't allow for a lot of gear or tripods, so I didn't bring mine with me. I fully agree on the "don't use it, if not needed" sentiment!!

Here's about as far as I'm going to take it. Used the patch tool quite a bit. Thanks for all your input!!

You have very good contrast on her shadow side, Extract feature works very fast and effectively to assist with the area selection. Manual light painting works well here also.
By the way if you have pixels to play with, don't forget to rotate the canvas (by e.g. 3 degrees CW in the first image).

How's this?

Heads too small for the body.. I just wanna say....The model is Hot ! Sorry, I have nothing to add beyond the earlier posts.

jeremy_clay wrote:
How's this?

She's got man hands!!!