Basic Portrait of a Couple
by JB707

Comment:
The DOF on this seems to be fairly narrow. The male subject's eyes and t-shirt collar seem to be in focus but both the tree bark behind and the female subject's sunglasses seem to be OOF. You got a good set of subjects here with some texture to both of them (he with the facial hair; she with the glasses and hair moving around) but I think a smaller aperture would have helped this composition by widening the DOF. In my experience this is just something that you have to either get right from the first portrait you shoot or you have to take several like this where you want to bop yourself on the forehead when you review the shots and realize that you had the lens wide open until it finally sinks in to check EVERYTHING before taking that shot. Then again, there is another way. You can do what I do and just take hundreds of photos at each photo shoot so that hopefully somewhere in the first hundred or so you'll notice everything from the ISO to the aperture to the crap in the background. :)
I really think you have something here and I think this couple would be well worth shooting again.

The Girl With A Pearl Earring
by sher

Comment:
Perfect use of soft focus on this image. Great lighting, great soft textures.

The Eyes of Blindness
by Everyday Renee

Comment:
Well, this starts off as a good portrait capture but it ends up with a dog in it . . . no serioiusly I hope you read past that after that big blowup that went on before the contest began. The technical problems I see here are that the eyes are so dark we get almost no catchlights in them and there is a distracting object on the right of the photo. Believe it or not both of these things are fixable so that makes them a real pain. If you have PS you can use the Polygon tool to select around one eye and then hold the shift key and select around the other eye. Now on the layers menu you choose the button that looks like a circle with a diagonal line through it and add a Curves layer based on this selection. You can now lighten just the eyes to bring out more definition and show off some of those eyes that will make this a more personal shot to any viewer and not just someone that knows the pretty pooch. Also with the object on photo right, you can simply clone it out and if you notice a gradiation flowing down your image use the Healing Brush rather than the Clone Stamp to gradually remove the offending outline. I do like the overall dreamy quality you got.

Little Princess
by Sonifo

Comment:
Good capture. I know from experience how hard it can be to keep the definition in something like the feathers and still not totally lose the texture in that type of hat. Very good exposure. I'm looking forward to finding out what kind of lighting you used for this shot. I wish it was just a little sharper around the eyes. Perhaps a polygon tool in PS to select only the eyes and apply a selective USM to the eyes to just make them pop so very little more. Good shot.

Solitude
by moodville

Comment:
Damn nice capture. Love the texture of the face and the sharp eyes. The lighting gives this great depth.

Country Boy
by dacrazyrn

Comment:
Totally cute capture. I immediately thought of my daughter and just how amazingly lovely kids are when they are engrossed in learning something or playing with something. It's just so much fun to see them making those connections in their heads. This little guy looks intent on something. Sadly the photo looks a little soft on his face. A gold reflector (or fcb) would have been great on the righthand side of this shot as well to bring a little more light onto his face.

Into The Night
by garrywhite2

Comment:
This is a cool technique. It can yield nice photos if you leave the shutter open for a longer period of time and watch the noise level. I think this is just a little too dark and seems to not be terribly steady on the face. The candle seems to be perfectly still but the face seems soft. Did you use a tripod for this shot? How long was the exposure? Is the subject wearing something around his neck and head or is this totally based on the light produced by the candle? Good idea.

Monica
by Alexys

Comment:
Good angle. I don't care too much for the tint. A few nits such as cloning out the hairs on the nose and lips and maybe trying to capture the eye a little more open although its pretty obvious from the lighting how bright it was. You lose a little definition on the bridge of the nose but short of punching up the contrast and then doing a selective curves on the shadow under the nose I'm not sure what you could do to preserve that piece of the shot. Overall its artistic and technically good. Good capture.

Gazing
by movieman

Comment:
Soft focus and grainy texture that doesn't seem to add to the composition. I like the catchlights but the seem to give away some motion. Was there any movement you had to compensate for or is that just the physical design of the light sources? The skintones are not consistent throughout but that probably has more to do with the uneven lighting that you caught on the face.

Prayers For Spain
by MWitt

Comment:
Good shot; title really puts strong context to an otherwise very good capture. Congrats on this. Lighting looks awesome with nothing blown out. I'm guessing a softbox from above but I'm looking forward to seeing some of the technical details of this one.