Bug (her first session)

[Val1064]

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/13861873@N00/2291849770/" title="Picture 075g by valerie1064, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3218/2291849770_19ccdf1cce.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Picture 075g" /></a>
Camera: Kodak EasyShare C743 Zoom
Exposure: 0.016 sec (1/64)
Aperture: f/2.7000000476837
Focal Length: 6 mm
ISO Speed: 80
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Flash fired, auto mode
Her mom loves this but I think something is missing. I think maybe my lighting was a bit off in this one. I just can't put my finger on what I did wrong. Please let me know what you think and maybe together we can figure it out. Thanks!

[Kevin Held What]

I'm still pretty new, but I think I'll share my opinions, if it's alright with you.

I think the lighting is too spotlightish and more than a little harsh. It looks as though you used a gradient layer with the opacity down or a blending mode like soft/hard light. I guess it could just be the fact that I personally rarely, if ever, use my flash...I'm just a sucker for available light.

I feel like the crop could be better to direct attention to the face, as the foot definitely draws attention away.

In general I do like the shot and the pose, definitely a keeper.

[Marypop9]

I think if you were to crop the back of the dress a little more bringing the face in the top right of the picture would have made the difference.

[Val1064]

Is this more like you were talking about? <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/13861873@N00/2298545412/" title="picture75k1 by valerie1064, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3268/2298545412_2bcb9d3633.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="picture75k1" /></a>

[wulf]

I think the closer crop is much better. However, the colour still seems a bit dark. I experiment with several of the auto-adjust options on The Gimp and most of them seemed to give a worthwhile improvement (with auto levels making the biggest difference).

In the attached version I went a bit further, using manual adjustements to the levels tool followed by a toned down version of a trick I came across this morning to create a more saturated "velvia film (http://sharingmylight.com/?p=422) appearance and finally, because all that brightening made the harsh shadow caused by the flash more apparent, adjusting the background to make that less obvious.

However, I suspect that just autolevels, in most image editing software would be enough.

Wulf

ps. I note that the picture you started the thread with is much brighter than the second one you posted.

[Val1064]

Thanks everyone for the tips. Wulf I did darken it because another poster said the lighting was too harsh. Thank you for the link you posted, it helps a lot. I will keep working with this until I am happy with it too.

[peeperita]

i took a look at your photostream and that child is a complete natural in front of the camera...with an engaging expression to her eyes.....were the poses your suggestion or did she just "do"?

as far as the lighting goes.....i think you did well exposing for her skin and your first offering is the one i like the most.......her skin looks marvelous.....i believe that the "darkness" that a previous poster was talking about is the almost spotlight effect the drifting off of light around the edges lends to it.....a new crop is definitely all it needed.....

great job.....

peeper

[Val1064]

i took a look at your photostream and that child is a complete natural in front of the camera...with an engaging expression to her eyes.....were the poses your suggestion or did she just "do"?


peeperShe had so much fun just playing around I wasn't about to try to pose her myself, I just let her do as she wanted. She was so much fun to shoot, her eyes seemed to tell a different story each time a shot was captured.
She will be back next week to work on an Easter session, we are going to use mirrors and a few other different backgrounds. I would love to hear what you think of them when we are finished. Thank you for your kind words!

[Major_Small]

I think kevin was talking more about the spotlight type effect you had going when he said he thought it was too harsh. I don't think it was too harsh though. I just think you had a little too much ambient light. If everything outside the range of the flash had fallen into darkness I think it would have made a much better image.

Here's what I tried with your image:

First, I played with levels. I brought the black end up by quite a bit so a whole lot more would get lost in the shadows. I then had to readjust the midpoint to fix what that'd done to the contrast. The foot isn't completely lost, but it's not as obvious now, and the contrast is still higher than the original, but I kinda liked it, so I didn't bring it as far down as it was:
<a href="http://www.zooomr.com/photos/johnshao/4394109/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.zooomr.com/images/4394109_c1f3545a6a.jpg" width="375" height="500" border="0" alt="beelighting" /></a>

I sorta liked it as it was at that point, but I decided to crop in a bit to see what would happen. This is the crop I settled on:
<a href="http://www.zooomr.com/photos/johnshao/4394111/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.zooomr.com/images/4394111_594088e707.jpg" width="376" height="500" border="0"alt="beelightingcropped" /></a>

Looking back on them now, I think they're a little over-saturated, but going back to try to fix it, I can't seem to bring back the details in the hair without also bringing back her feet. At least not without isolating her head and treating different parts of the image separately.