take a swing….

[mbpautz762]

Hello – I am somewhat happy with these photos, but would like some feedback on a new type of processing I’m trying out.  It’s based on VSCO film presets in lightroom.  Well, honestly, I would like feedback on composition and lighting as well.  I can’t trust my friends because they all gush and are way too positive.  What better place to get truly honest feedback than here??  This is a direct link to the “Test” gallery on my zenfolio site: http://progressiveimaging.zenfolio.com/p1010005921

What do you think?  good/bad/ugly?

[KarynLee]

They are solid, IMO.

I am assuming the look you’re going for is a soft matte feel, which is hard to nail without messing with colours.

I have nothing to say about the first.
The second, the top of the railing visible in the top right is highly distracting, and it’s already a very bust picture. I’d crop out any unnecessary distractions.
The 3rd you’ve really caught a moment and I love it, but the white balance is off. It’s very cool.
I like the 4, and I imagine that you can read the text on your screen, but I can’t read it from this end, and I would really like to. Also, the bright patched of green/yellow are distracting behind the paper, I’d tone those down a bit.
The 5th is good, but I would spot remove those dust specs, and crop a little differently. Dead Center makes this more boring, not more exciting.
I again like the 6th for the moment you caught. I hate how her hands are half cropped out – don’t limb chop! In an instance where you just happened to catch it (as I suspect this shot is) crop in between joints – so, crop above her wrist, etc. This gives the impression that her arm comtinues on. If you limb chop halfway through a hand or a write, it’s distracting. Also, these are cool and there is lots of magenta in the skin. Is your monitor calibrated?
7th, I like this, I would have show a little from the left side, so there was less table in the shot. At the very least, clone out the distracting elements on the table, so it’s not obviously intruding on the image.
And the 8th, this is good, I like this moment. Again, skin tones are too cool, and the mom’s hand is half in the picture. Also, the bright white in the bottom left corner draw the eye, I’d crop that out entirely.

All in all, good. Your composition and timing are good, and your camera settings semm sound. Now it’s just the little details that will take a good image to a great image!

[KarynLee]

Jeepers, I am exhausted, sorry for all the spelling errors!

When I go back, I also think in the 7th, I’d like to see more detail in the white of the dress, as it’s got so much detail. Bring back those highlights.

[mbpautz762]

Wow…that’s was a lot quicker than I thought!  Thank you for the excellent advice.  I can’t figure out the 6th image.  I got caught off guard but the moment was so nice I wanted to work it a little, but I keep screwing up the color.  I uploaded the original edit of the 6th image – is it any better?

I didn’t think about the cropping, but now that you mention it, I can’t fix it without cutting her whole arm off 🙁

[KarynLee]

Okay, I hope you don’t mind, I took the liberty of doing a screen shot, and then editing step by step.

 

First, I needed to brighten the skin. I used curves for this, just a gentle curve, and masked off everything but the people. I ended up with this:
[IMG]http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz177/PoochedObedience/AfterCurvesBrighten_zpsa679e1e0.jpg[/IMG]

This helped skin tone a lot. I removed the red using a curves layer and by switching from RGB to just the R channel. I let it go for the whole image to pull it back. THis is what I ended up with after that step:
[IMG]http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz177/PoochedObedience/AfterRemoveRed_zps9bca167e.jpg[/IMG]

Then I warmed it up  using a warming filter and a curves layer where I pulled down just the blue channel slightly. I got this:
[IMG]http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz177/PoochedObedience/AfterWarm_zps4fcce49c.jpg[/IMG]

It fixed the tone, but brought back the red in the skin, so I did a curves layer where I brightened overall, took down the reds, and also bumped the greens (which removes Magenta). I then got this:
[IMG]http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz177/PoochedObedience/CurvesShift_zps56510003.jpg[/IMG]

I was pretty happy, so I then added a peach haze. I added a fill layer with the colour set to F9C4BD on SOFT LIGHT at 20%. This gave me the same matte feel as your other photos, but because it’s peach, it doesn’t affect skin tones. It also brightened it right up!
[IMG]http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz177/PoochedObedience/Haze_zpsdfff0c25.jpg[/IMG]

Then, I cropped. It’s not the best angle, and the couple will value the image, but it’s not one for the portfolio. 🙂
[IMG]http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz177/PoochedObedience/AfterCrop_zpsa64991ae.jpg[/IMG]

[KarynLee]

Damn, I guess image tags don’t work. And I can’t go back and edit. You’ll have to copy and paste those! Sorry!

[mbpautz762]

Thanks for the excellent write-up!  I appreciate your help!

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