Becca Bridal 1

I never feel like I quite "get it" I would welcome some ideas on how this

could be better...editing and lighting and any other thoughts.

Thank you

Hi Tom - Difficult to understand your comment of you not "getting it". Is it just with wedding images?. I quite like this one. The color in the foreground with the petals and the blurred background makes for a good shot. I like your angle too - with the lens close to the ground. I just might have wanted to see slightly more detail in her dress (the texture and folds). Other than that I think you controlled light quite well. Maybe off camera flash could have made it a bit different. Nice work. Best regards, Mornè.

Whites that go beyond 240 RGB are not going to be able to hold fine detail as a rule.  I used shadow/high-lights adjustment in photoshop cs and amazingly the detail could be recovered.  The rest of the image was trashed but the dress was perfect.  I took a snapshot and used the history brush to return the face and background closer to the original.  I desaturated the face a bit and lightly dodged the bottom of her dress.  I remove most of the blue-cyan color-cast with hue-saturation.  Open the link to see the larger version of this.  You have a great looking bride, well posed with good posture, with great expression.  The lighting is good if a bit more than you needed.  Many wedding photographers err on the side of 1/2 stop underexposure in order to retain dress detail and then raise the overall levels in post production.  Shadow/high-lights adjustment is very useful for shots like this.  I hope this helps.  Good luck.

Open the link to view a larger, more detailed image.

What you actually need is a posing class. Your local photo society probably has one. Most of the problem here is with her awkward hand position and hunched shoulders.