Trying to Improve..Suggestions and feedback pls

09/14/2007 10:08:24 AM · #1

This is my daughter Ashley. Yes I know most dissapprove of the make-up, but we were just playing around and she is not really allowed to wear it o/s of the house. These were shot outside in the shade of trees for use of diffused lighting. All were handheld. I am looking for feedback on techniques and posing please. Thank you in advance, Tammy

my favorite of the bunch

Message edited by author 2007-09-14 10:09:20.

09/14/2007 10:34:15 AM · #2

Left you a comment on the last pic.

09/14/2007 10:46:18 AM · #3

original edit

I actually like the coloring of the first one, but the crop of the second one. I actually had this one printed through mpix, and I cropped some of the top.

Message edited by author 2007-09-14 11:25:08.

09/14/2007 11:07:51 AM · #4

in a word: blue.

The crop is better, it seems more even to me. If i was at home I could have a bash with it myself.

I think it needs a bit of balancing in there. Have you used the curves tool much? A good method is clicking on the centre point to anchor it and then slightly moving the left and right marks as you see fit.

I just feel it now needs some of the shadows put back into it to give it some balance and maybe a slight change of hue to make it less blue?

But if you like it, you like it. If you're happy with it, then keep it.

maggieddd

09/14/2007 12:13:27 PM · #5

Here is my version

09/14/2007 12:41:49 PM · #6

maggie, what were your editing steps?

What about the others...feedback and suggestions on where I can Improve is appreciated!

Tammy

Message edited by author 2007-09-14 12:50:41.

09/14/2007 01:28:43 PM · #7

Bump for suggestions pleaSE!!!!!!!!!!1

maggieddd

09/14/2007 02:48:41 PM · #8

Originally posted by tjbel05:

maggie, what were your editing steps?

What about the others...feedback and suggestions on where I can Improve is appreciated!

Tammy

all I did was correct your color. I measured color in the darkest part of the image, then the lightest and neutral. then adjusted curves acconrdingly

09/14/2007 04:36:40 PM · #9

Here is my version... went a little bit further down a strange path. This took about 10 minutes.

[thumb]586876[/thumb]

09/14/2007 05:09:51 PM · #10

I love that also....editing steps would be helpful....I am not very good at Photoshop.

09/14/2007 05:11:03 PM · #11

Originally posted by maggieddd:

Originally posted by tjbel05:
maggie, what were your editing steps?

What about the others...feedback and suggestions on where I can Improve is appreciated!

Tammy

all I did was correct your color. I measured color in the darkest part of the image, then the lightest and neutral. then adjusted curves acconrdingly

how do you measure the color in the different areas?

09/14/2007 05:18:18 PM · #12

Well the first thing was a tighter crop all around the picture to make it look a bit slimmer.

Then I used the shadow/highlight tool to get some shadow detail back. I used the color balance and shifted the midtones and shadows a bit to the yellow to warm things up a little bit, as shades of blue can make things look colder than they need to be.

I raised the contrast by about 6%. The most important thing on this was a high-pass filter that made all the detail on her dress and hair stand out.

To do this type of filter duplicate the layer, then go to filter->high pass and it will go all grey like. make it so you can see a brief outline of the picture (around 4 pix for this one I think). When you've done that use the levels control and put the sliders around the middle somewhere so you have clearer lines- it uses these lines to do the sharpening i think.

So now you'll have a grey version of the original. So you have to combine them- click the arrow above the layers palette that says 'Normal' and change it to 'soft-light' and change the opacity to suit. You can use hard-light too but its a bit harsh. I didn't use Unsharp Mask because I think this is a more natural look to things.

Then came the blur: another layer with a small gaussian blur (4 pix), with a layer mask and an inverted (ctrl+i) find-edges (filter->find edges) run, and then getting the right opacity on the layer so it isn't overwhelming. Then you click on flatten the image and it merges all the layers into a single pic so you can save it as a jpeg.

Sorry if that makes no sense... but you asked :).

09/15/2007 08:38:16 AM · #13

Shameless bump for the weekenders.

09/15/2007 08:44:27 AM · #14

I forgot to mention, I also did a little bit of dodge on her face because the shadow/highlight flattened it too much.

HAve you tried any alternate edits yet?