The calm before the storm...

Is the shadowed area too distracting? I took a couple of others later

with flash to fill it in, but I haven't had a chance to look at them

much yet. Any comments or...?

Jeff, please yes let us see the other ones. I just love the title your photo. I don't think the shadows are distracting. Cheers, Sacha ;-)

nice skin tones, but the whites are a bit hot

to take care of the "hot" whites, is it just a simple lowering of the brightness in ps, or... sorry for the "newby" question, but let's face it...that's what I am so far

so a lovely moment.....6/6

Try using the lasso tool to select the "cap" only, and modify saturation or the histogram, or the gamma...

this is a winner!...

No I think the shadowed area is really welcome! In fact this shadow let me imagine that your baby is sleeping quietly on a beach! obviously not!

First let me say I REALLY love the title, my first pass by I didn't notice nor did I see you introduction to the shot (the "critique photos" link only shows the photo).

 

Given the quality of the photo I just assumed you had a longer background in photography. For a freshman or even sophmore attempt this is quite something.

 

If you want to give it a go in PS, first go gently it's easy to over work a photo and this one is quite good as it stands. I'd use the curves tool which is difficult to explain, but relatively easy to use. In this case it would allow you to make the highlights a little darker without much effect on the rest.

 

It's a very minor point, and may not even improve over this rendering, but learning the curves tool is important if you plan on alot of digital shooting.

Thankx to all for such wonderful comments! I wasn't sure how this shot would go over since sometimes it seems like there's no pleasing, but looks like I did ok. I'll be sure to work with "curves" more in the future (right now I've tried once or twice, but it's such a hit & miss for me at this stage that I often get frustrated & just use brightness/contrast). this next version was with a little more fill-flash and no other changes in ps (other than saturation at zero to get the black and white, and a little cropping to get rid of some distractions on the left)

Me encanta. El gesto absolutamente calmado y relajado y ese brazo que parece que estuviera en el autobus. Muy simpatica. Un beso, Jeff