Today at I ♡ Faces they are having a special day. Instead of the regular Fix-it Friday, where I edit one of their problem photos, today I can enter one of my own and get constructive feedback from the pros.
I had a hard time deciding between two photos, but I finally settled on this one of my niece. I think this is a pretty nice photo, but I still think the skin needs some editing. I especially think the skin between her eyes needs some work to take out the blue. I just couldn’t get it to look natural. Maybe a new crop would give it a little something?
I took this photo in my living room in my makeshift studio. I used only natural light. I use Photoshop CS3 for my editing.
f/2.8
ISO 200
1/125 s
50 mm
Here is the original:
I can’t wait to see what some of you can do with it. I’d love any and all constructive feedback! Should I have framed it better? Used more DOF? Anything will be helpful. Thanks!
- I am Kerry, and this is my blog. I am a wife, mother and photographer. I use this blog to talk about my life, my family, and my love of photography. I also use it to showcase some of my photos. I hope you enjoy it!
I can’t help but feel that the edits lost their focus. did you use some sort of blur/diffusion? i love how the eyes are so dark and crisp in the first one – but the edits seem to be a bit blurry there, which loses the pictures point of focus – the eyes/face.
just a thought! cute baby!!!
By aaron on 05.08.09 7:01 am | Permalink
The edit is actually absolutely beautiful if you look at it on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kerrysramblings/3513032084/in/photostream/
I don’t know why, but for some reason the way you posted it on your blog, it’s very pixelated and blurry. You may consider fixing that so that you don’t wind up with lots of comments similar to the first one.
By Jen on 05.08.09 8:51 am | Permalink
I love this picture – I see what you mean about the skin between the eyes . . . but since I have no clue what I’m doing I have nothing to tell you
but i think you’re talented and I love this cute picture!!!
By Becca on 05.08.09 9:29 am | Permalink
I tried to fix the edit photo to make it less blurry and pixelated. Hopefully this is better!
By Kerry on 05.08.09 9:38 am | Permalink
I agree with you, it is a very nice photo
. Your SOOC shot is slightly underexposed but you really needed to in order to preserve the whites and keep them from blowing. Your edit ended up too yellow. Look in the shadows of the hairline. You’ll see a strange reddish colored shadow. That’s a color cast.
I think the sharpness issue comes from not sharpening for web. There are lots of ways to do this. My favorite is to resize my photo to 640 pixels on the long side and then do an unsharp mask of 350/.2/0. It looks better on flickr because they apply some sharpening to web images in the upload.
I did play as acceptance of your invitation
. Here is a color edit:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y286/NanasMama/Babyedit.jpg
And a b/w:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y286/NanasMama/Babyeditbw.jpg
I lightened it considerably, ran Coffeeshop’s Perfect portrait. Used the skin softening on about 45% and the color pop at 10%. I deleted all the rest of the layers. I cloned the two spots above her eyebrows that made her look worried. I burned the light spot between her eyebrows. I did an eye trick and some curves work. Sharpened for web and finished. The b/w conversion is just a gradient map with a bump in curves.
I hope this helps!
Amanda J.
By Amanda J. on 05.08.09 10:54 am | Permalink
Hi Kerry!
What a sweet photo to submit today. It really has a lot going for it and features a super-cute little one as well.
My first thought was that the photo needed to be brighter. Because of that, I was drawn to your last edit more…but didn’t really care for the “glowy” look in that edit. That is just my personal preference though. There are probably 8,000 other people around here who would love the glow.
Here is the first edit I did which brightened the baby but wasn’t cropped down at all: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thearthurclan/3513948530/
After I saw that photo in Flickr, I started to think the little foot behind the baby might be a little distracting so I then did a 5×7 crop: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thearthurclan/3513951728/
You really can’t go wrong with this shot. It’s a beautiful one!
~Angie
co-founder of iHeartFaces
By theArthurClan on 05.08.09 1:50 pm | Permalink
Ack!! Obviously, the crop was 7×5 (not 5×7.) Sorry about that!
~Angie
co-founder of iHeartFaces
By theArthurClan on 05.08.09 1:51 pm | Permalink
I just have to say…. WOW! What a dolly!! I love the photo.
I didn’t crop the photo, but I did play with it a bit.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3645/3514301016_8a8898d6ce_o.jpg
I smoothed the skin using Portraiture, at only 15%. Decreased the yellow and the red, and sharpened using MCP’s crystal clear. and that’s it. It’s a beautiful photo!
By Christina on 05.08.09 4:53 pm | Permalink
I agree with everyone…this is a wonderful SOOC image, and your niece is totally precious!
My little grandson also has a tiny vein in the same place, which has become less noticable over time. But I practiced a lot on the skin between his eyes when he was a little baby! I used the Patch Tool on your photo, then I ran a skin smoothing action to blend it all nicely.
I lightened the photo quite a bit, and reduced the yellows and red tones.
I ran the burn tool very lightly over her lash line and sharpened the eyes slightly.
I cropped off center, close to the rule of thirds.
Here is a link to my edit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artfromtheheart/3513737355/
Thank you for sharing this darling photo with us today! By the way, the photos in your header are absolutely beautiful.
By Teresa on 05.08.09 7:18 pm | Permalink
Those are so cute and the one of Nora is hilarious. Lucy is ridiculously delicious!
By aunt sue on 05.10.09 9:38 pm | Permalink
Kerry, You are getting to be GOOD. I don’t know anything about camera settings and all you can do to make a perfect picture, but I LOVE the faces of children and you know how to capture a priceless expression.
By Tricia Platt on 05.14.09 2:40 pm | Permalink