kellyphillips

Hi, I like this. The only thing that I wish were different is the eyes. I wish there was just a bit more light on them. Everything else is nice and you have an attractive model as well.

Hi, the first thing that I noticed was the crop. You went in between a 3/4 and full body. Some people may like this look, but really I think that the feet should be included. I cropped a little tighter to show a difference. My version really wouldn't be my first choice. I would like to see this in a full body shot with feet. I used to cut of feet all of the time, and still do if I get into a hurry. It's just something to think about. It's a good photo, I can't see anything else wrong with it. Take care.

Hi Will, You've done everything right in this one. I love the catchlights. That 50 1.4 is a nice little lens, huh? What is your method for setting white balance now? Also, when you shoot portraits, do you center focus on the eyes and recompose? Take care.

The first thing that I noticed was that this was a little on the dark side. Usually in the field I will underexpose a little to keep from blowing out the highlights, but then I fix it in PP. Here is my version.

I have stared at this amazing photo for a long time. I live in a town that is home to about 1000 people. I can't imagine how amazing it would feel to be on top of this building looking out over all of that. Wow! That's all I can say.

Just wanted some opinions on this if anyone has time. Thanks, I know

it's kind of overdone, sorry.

Hi. Do you do any sharpening in Photoshop or is that the magic of the 5D alone? If you do use PS, what did you do to this one? I like your portraits very much. The eyes are razor sharp and the skin tones are perfect. Thanks.

I don't know how much you know about photoshop, so I will assume you don't know much about layers. This is very easy to do. First you go to "layer" then "duplicate layer". It will ask you if you want to duplicate the background, click ok. Then go to "filter" then "blur" then "gaussian blur." I use a radius of about 10 pixels (8-10 is fine). Then you will see a picture that looks very blurry. On the right there is a box that says "opacity" it should be at 100%. Slide it down until you see the softness you want. I usually go down to about 15-20%. Now you have to make the eyes sharp by using a layer mask. Go to "layers" then "layer mask" then "reveal all". Now you will use the paint brush to paint the areas where you want the original background layer to show through. The color has to be black. If you mess up, change the color to white and it will bring the copied layer back. To show the sharp eyes from the background layer select the paint brush (again make sure it's black) Turn the hardness down to 0%, you want it as soft as you can get it. At the top you will see another opacity box for the paintbrush. I usually have this on about 65%. Select a brush size equal to the eyes and paint. You will see the sharp eyes start to show. I usually go over them a couple of times to make sure the top layer is gone. You don't want any blur on your eyes. Sometimes I paint the teeth or lips as well. When you're done go to "layer" then "flatten image." Layers are great and allow you to do just about anything. Once you learn them you will see a huge difference in your photos. I'm a fan of your work anyway, but this will take your portraits through the roof. Take care!

 

Hi Jan, How's this?

Very nice shot. The exposure is perfect. You captured a nice expression also. The only thing that I would be tempted to do is to add a blur layer over the original to soften to scene some. I played around with this some, I may have overdone it just a bit, but I just wanted to give you a quick idea of what it would look like. Some people don't like the effect, but I think it works quite well with babies.

Hey David, This has a really weird blue cast to it that I find a bit distracting. I would probably crop so that the bench isn't in the direct center. I believe that this would work best as a black and white. I played around with it some, hope you don't mind. Take care.

Thanks for stopping by. I think I will get some more opinions before tossing this one out, I see plenty of character.

This is another repost because the first had a washed out effect.

Which is better? Thanks for your time.

My origianl post of this had a washed out effect. This is the full

color version. Which is better? Thanks for any input.

Thanks you very much. I actually did add a blur layer to this to soften the face some. That's probably the reason for the blur on the cheek. My original plan was to make this 100% black and white. That version looked fine, but I wanted to add a little something extra.

I think you did a good job with the composition and pose. This is very dark though. I went into photoshop and used curves and boosted the contrast.

I can see why you think I used on camera flash also. Looking at the catchlights, you can see a little light below a big one. That is a 10 degree spot under an octabox. Also I used a kicker spot, which really isn't visable in this crop. Also 2 large sheets of foamcore. Thanks for the comments.

You may want to go with a tighter crop for a more intimate portrait. This also could benefit from some sharpening.

I would appreciate any thoughts/critques/complaints on this. I used a

complicated lighting setup and an even more complicated Photoshop

session. Thanks for your time.

Will, Beautiful image. It may be my monitor, but it seems like the sky may be just a bit too hot. I didn't look at the histogram, though. That's just being picky, it's a great photo!

Thanks Will.

Will I've been waiting for some new stuff with the new gear. This is worth the wait. I love the red on the water. The bird is so sharp.That really is quite the setup!

Hi Kenny. This isn't too bad at all. What lens did you use here? It does look just a bit too shallow, maybe you shot this wide open. There's nothing really wrong with that, but the right eye being out of focus kind of bothers me. I shoot most of my studio portraits at f/8 to f/11 because that is where most lenses are sharpest. Alot of people only shoot portraits at f/1.8-f/3. It really depends on what you like. I like to shoot for max sharpness and then add some blur in photoshop (except for the eyes.) It looks like you just used one light here, maybe a softbox? Try adding a second light above for the hair. You won't believe the difference that it will make. Sometimes I like to put a grid spot directly behind the subject to backlight and add a nice glow around them. Studio lighting is hard to learn. I'm nowhere close to being good at it. Keep shooting, good things will happen.

Thanks for the info. You confirmed what I feared about the lights on the tree. That is very creative how you colored them in. It looks fantastic.

Hi, I was wondering if you had any tips for lighting a scene like this. I have to do this soon and haven't got it set up yet. I'm mainly concerned with getting a shutter speed slow enough to get the tree lights to show up. Did you use flash or hot lights here? Thanks, this probably won't be as hard as I'm making it out to be. =)Great shot by the way.