motherly love..

[chalkie7]

Hello all,

Had my first experience at the weekend of working in a studio. Managed to get quite a few nice standard portraits which I was reasonably pleased with. Also managed to get this shot, which I really like. Any opinions regarding improvement would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Chalkie7

[xxpinballxx]

Hi chalkie....please read the stickies before posting.....if you need any help we'll gladly guide you in the right direction.
The 'Rules' for this Critique Forum

Forum rules state photos need to be 600pix on the widest side.

As for your shot its a lovely photo and a nice candid look. How did you pull the color out? Or did you take it in B&W in camera. I think the childs bibs are a bit flat looking. MAybe a little playing around with the levels of the photo to bring a bit more contrast out.

Welcome to the forums and hope you enjoy and get some knowledge from all our members!

[chalkie7]

Thanks for the response pinball...I have amended the pic now re: filesize. It was shot in colour and then converted to b&w in photoshop...levels left as they were. The original was a little over-exposed, so I corrected the RAW file first before saving as jpeg.

Thanks for the welcome...been around for a while...very impressed with both the standard of some of the photography on here and also the advice given!

[chalkie7]

had a play with the levels...better, or have I over-done it?

[curtiswheat]

I'm thinking if you mask yourself out and work the levels again, might make the child blend with the mother just a bit better like so. IMO


[IMG][/IMG]

[jdwalz]

Back to the original - which is gorgeous!
I will say, typical composition but this is where you have to play with the assets of your photo.
The childs hair and eyelashes - amazing in the original photo but overdone in the most recent incarnation. Your face too, is quite touching.
I don't know what resolution you have for this photo but if large enough I would crop the child's face up to the wispy hair and your face down to the earring and across capturing the heart-shaped button.

Well, what the heck, I might as well just do it and see how it turns out.



Now this is a more intimate arrangement (IMO), emphasizing closeness and the intimacy of mother and child. I played with the tones slightly to add more emphasis on the two faces and the interplay between them.
I hope you don't mind my experimentations.

[chalkie7]

thanks for the responses, all more than welcome. Jdwalz - the difference you have made to the shot is superb...I really like what you have done...the tighter crop works much better and the overall texture to the pic is great! Could you please give me a little more guidance on how you achieved this? Incidentally, I'm not in the shot...it's a picture of my daughter and grand-daughter.

[jdwalz]

I really like the photo you took and it makes one realize that you can finesse almost any photo to bring out the simple beauty which was there are along.

The original seemed to lack a sense of ambient balance. There was light but no sense of source, which gave the photo a flatness and lack of surface depth.

To fix this in Photoshop -
1. open your photo which will appear on the layers palette as BACKGROUND
2. click on CREATE NEW LAYER tab on the layers palette. This will be called Layer 1 by default.
3. From the swatches select pure white (#FFFFFF) as your color.
4. Select the Paintbucket tool and fill in Layer 1 completely with white.
Now you can only see white and your image seems to be buried.
5. Adjust the opacity on Layer 1 to about 12-15 - your image will look very light but you will fix that in the next few steps.
6. Go to the LAYER drop down menu, select FLATTEN IMAGE
7. Go to the IMAGE drop down and select ADJUSTMENTS and then select BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST
8. Adjust the contrast up slightly, to restore the hair on the child's head and bring out a little shadow (contrast +5 should be enough but you be the judge)
9. Create a duplicate layer of the photo layer BACKGROUND, this will be called BACKGROUND COPY by default.
10. Select the Dodge Tool.
11. Using a soft round brush, in this case I used a 65px brush with an exposure of 25% or less. Softly enhance the areas of light on the forehead of the child and the mother. You have to overdo it slightly but that's not a problem because.....
12. You now will choose a blend mode - in this case the blend mode was OVERLAY.
13. Go back to the Layers drop down. Flatten Image.

Your done. You've softened the image, brought in light and contrast without losing any of the integrity of your original photo. Hope this helped.

Keep sharing your work, you have a very good eye.

__________________________________________________ _________
Canon 40D. 17-40mm f/4L, Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS, 50mm f/1.4
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No, I'm not really a photographer, I just play one on TV.

[chalkie7]

Jdwalz - you are a star! Many thanks for the comprehensive guide...I will certainly be playing for hours on end now...much appreciated.