The lady seems to have a slim face and a strong nose. The fingers are rather short which leads to think that she is not a tall person in which case you have accentuated her forehead jaw line and place the nose in an unflaterring pose.
You camera position and/or her face position should be looking up at you. A lifting of the head would have produced a more flatering portrait.
***You are correct. She is not very tall. I shall try to be mindful of this in the future.
The palm of the hand in the hair looks amputated. Please avoid hands until mastering portrait posing....or feeling lucky.
***I was actually trying to recreate an image I saw while looking up poses for head shots but after reading your comment above, I went back and the model is indeed waaaaay taller. I find it difficult to post models so usually try to find some poses that I would like to try out so I am better prepared when they arrive. I shall try to keep the model in mind when trying to find images in the future.
The crop at the hair line is somehow forced. I cannot comment as we cannot see her full head. The bare circle needs to be addressed somehow.
***Tried to stick to the rule of thirds. \'Forced\' me into the crop at the hair line. Here is the image SOOC.
2- Light
You have used broad lighting which is her face to the light to the camera. More feathering would have helped and Butterfly lighting would have been a safer shot.
***Duly noted.
Am I looking a two light sources and a reflector? Why the B/G has an uneven lighting. When you do a lights set up, it is advisable to light the B/G first followed by key light and then main light.
***Lizz was sitting at 45 degrees next to a large screen door (camera left) and there was a strobe on camera right. The walls of the apartment are white. I was planning on using a white backdrop I had set up in the living room but panicked a little when she mentioned she only had half as much time to spend. My mistake for not taking my time with the images and rushing at that stage. I was planning on compositing the image with a different background so I didn\'t pay as much attention to the lighting in the back but I am assuming the extremely grey clouds outside and the strobe didn\'t play well together causing the funkiness in the background.
3- Post Processing
I noted that you are using LR which is not really what should be used for such PP.
You have complicated your PP by not having a correct posing and lighting....unless you messed with ACR on this original image you have posted.
***I usually start with LR for lens corrections, cropping and basic changes in highlights, whites, blacks, and shadows. Then go to PS for skin retouching. And then back to LR for color correction but I must confess to using some presets I found online for this last step. I don\'t know how to get the colors to pop - just moving the sliders for vibrance/saturation don\'t yield good results. On more than one occasion, people have remarked in the strange colors so I guess I will stay away from the presets. The magenta and cyan issue and any others related to color are a result of using the preset.
The problem with LR is the complexity of CC\'ing images. And in case someone is proficient in LR to do such CC\'ing, then PS would be faster and simpler for him/her to use.
***Any suggestions on where I can learn about color correction in photoshop. Paradoxically, I thought PS would be the much harder tool for this purpose.
You are over in magenta and your C is 0
***See above about (incorrect) preset use.
I corrected as follows:
In this version, you were able to fix the brightness in her wrist arm right by her wrist. Was this being caused due to the magenta/cyan issue or is there something else at play here? I wasn\'t able to sort it out on my own so help would be appreciated.
Thank you for the critique. I will certainly try to be mindful of the suggestions in the future.
Nov 27, 2014 at 09:49 AM
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