In need of comments & critiques.

[Jones]

I definitely did a speed edit, which includes some ‘destructive’ skin blurring, but unless you’re retouching for a magazine, you don’t have the luxury to do that to every single portrait. For what it’s worth, CC, I didn’t see any edit errors on your version so that probably means nobody else will, either. Unless you were talking about my version, in which case I fully accept it! :p my edit was probably 5mins or so.

[aperfectcircle]

http://s22.postimg.org/8p57hxn9d/beforeandaftervanessa.jpg

 

Alright guys, I tried it more of the way that some of you showed your versions and suggested.  Thoughts?

Don’t mind terribly low resolution before and after, threw that together in paint.

[cameraclicker]

Hummm…..

I think you must have applied sharpening to the whole image?  It would be better to be able to look at larger images.  Everything looks good if the image is small enough.  Anyway, the image on the right has something going on with the hair.  It looks a bit like a bad case of dandruff.  Over her left eye, and in front of her left shoulder, it is probably sharpening halos on the highlights.

As a separate note, the lighting looks like there was a flash in the hot shoe and the camera was held in portrait orientation with the shutter release at the bottom.  She is too close to the background so you see a well defined shadow to the left of her.

There is a white spot in her hair.  Draw a line from her right pupil across her left eyebrow and into her hair.  Look along that line about half way through her hair.

I think her before hair is generally better than the after hair.  I would only sharpen her eyes, the hair was good enough to start with and you don’t want to sharpen her skin and highlight any blemishes you missed.

To me, she looks a little orange, but she may use orange makeup.  If you could reduce the creases under her eyes to about half way between before and after, so they are still there but not as obvious, it might look better.  Try just painting over them with a 5% brush with colour taken from just below the lines or the bright part of her cheek.  Do it on a separate layer, and paint a couple of times if the first time is not enough.  You can turn the layer on and off to see the effect.

There is another white spot where you see through her hair just where it meets the right frame edge.  I would remove that spot as well as I find it distracting.

 

[aperfectcircle]

I didn’t actually sharpen the whole image, I only did sharpen the eyes.  I think it may be distortion from me messing with the sizes and everything?

http://s14.postimg.org/moiyktfrl/IMG_6080.jpg  that’s the original

http://s11.postimg.org/ouade1ab7/IMG_6080.jpg  and there’s the after.

 

I see the the white spot on the shoulder that I think is the one you’re referring to and I think the one in the hair, which I’ll edit out.  I’ll try that with the lines under her eyes.  I’m so back and forth about what looks better with those.  I tried to tone down her skin, like remove some of red tint I thought it had, but there’s more I can do.  These kids are so tan and then layer that thick orange looking makeup on, I just don’t understand it.  As for the lighting, I have a hard time with studio lighting, but maybe I could remove the shadow.  I think of those shots I have there’s maybe only a couple other ones with a shadow, so not many suffered because of that.

[Bill]

APC – what are you using for your lighting? I want to off a suggestion in addition to CC, but I need to know what you were using. Camera, flash, continuous lighting, bounce cards, poster boards, backdrop all that jazz if you don’t mind. maybe draw a layout in a paint app to show the layout compared to the model.

[aperfectcircle]

This is probably really bad, but I was using one continuous light, but with the umbrella in front of it, kind of as a fill, and then there was huge windows in the room we were in that let in a lot of natural light.  I didn’t use the flash on my camera once.  That was with the white background I used, then the black one I let a little more of the continuous light into it by repositioning it. I’ve read things about the studio lighting and have tried different setups with it, but I try to refrain from the whole indoor set ups right now, as I’m usually pressed for space.

[aperfectcircle]

I’ll draw up a model real quick

[aperfectcircle]

http://s15.postimg.org/tlebwvpmz/model.png

 

There was also a door with a window leading to an outdoor porch giving a little light off to the right.  We were basically diagonal in the room, and cramped, it was horrible.

[cameraclicker]

The larger versions look much better than the two-in-one I say previously.

If she really looked that orange in daylight, then it is up to you whether to keep her colour and display her accurately, or desaturate yellow and orange a bit to make her a little whiter.  You don’t want to go too far and get a zombie.

Presumably the key light is the window, the continuous light is fill.  If your subject is against a wall, you will get a shadow unless you light the wall separately.  If the room is too cramped, a different space may work better.  My personal preference is strobes because I find continuous lights are not bright enough for the camera and too bright for the model’s eyes.  Like in sunshine, many tend to squint.  You probably want a couple of stops between key and fill to provide some shadow to give a 3D appearance.  If both sides are lit evenly, it can look flat.  Usually windows facing away from the sun are best.

[Author]

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