Hi! This is my first post!

[sueq54172]

Hello everyone! I recently got a Canon G7 and I've gone crazy taking pictures. I want to get better at it and it took me a LONG time to decide what picture I wanted to post first. But anyway...here it is! I THINK I took this in the car while he was in his carseat but I can't remember. The only changes I made to the photo was to sharpen it a little bit and put it in black and white.

[clockdoc]

Hi sueq and welcome to the group. This is an exceptionally sharp candid shot of your son. It may look better in print form but on the monitor it tends to appear a bit flat as far as tonal range. Since you have some photo editing software, I would recommend eliminating the catchlight in the eyes at the 8 o'clock position. Portrait photographers may use many lights to illuminate their subject but ideally, there should be only one catchlight in each eye, typically at the 10 or 2 o'clock position. While you are working on the catchlights you may also want to see how it looks if the remaining catchlights are taken down in size just a bit. Again, welcome to the group. I'll be happy to help where I can.

[sueq54172]

Originally Posted by clockdoc

Hi sueq and welcome to the group. This is an exceptionally sharp candid shot of your son. It may look better in print form but on the monitor it tends to appear a bit flat as far as tonal range. Since you have some photo editing software, I would recommend eliminating the catchlight in the eyes at the 8 o'clock position. Portrait photographers may use many lights to illuminate their subject but ideally, there should be only one catchlight in each eye, typically at the 10 or 2 o'clock position. While you are working on the catchlights you may also want to see how it looks if the remaining catchlights are taken down in size just a bit. Again, welcome to the group. I'll be happy to help where I can.

See, I KNEW that there was something missing! It's was one of my favorites but the more I looked at it, the more bored I got with it! That's why I posted it! Thanks!

[xxpinballxx]

I agree clockdoc, the right eye especially.
Very cute and great shot! You can see the look of concern on his face....eyebrows almost telling the story.

Clockdoc.....why is it the catchlights are typically at the ten or two position? Is there any reason behind it or just the normal range where they fall in normal portraits?

[clockdoc]

In many portrait studios, you will typically see two frontal lights placed to either side of the camera to provide general facial illumination (they are just lighting the face without regard to modeling the facial features). Their position places catchlights at the 2 and 10 o/clock position. Portrait photographers who go in for more dramatic lighting such as the butterfly or Rembrandt lighting will use a key light on either side of the camera at a height above the model's head. The fill light will be placed as close as possible to the camera lens but on the opposite side. I read of a rule of thumb somewhere that you can use as many lights as you want but the end result should look like it was shot with just one light (in this case they were referring to the sun.)
Good portrait studios will remove one of the catchlights in each eye depending on the position and what looks best. Try an experiment with removing all catchlights and then place them in pairs at different positions to see the effect. Before the advent of digital software, we had to use dyes to 'spot" out the unwanted catchlights. Today it is a much easier job.
Ambient light sources can create a variety of catchlight shapes, sizes and positions, such as in the case of this photo. Also, professional photographers who use large reflector panels shooting on location face the same dilema. The next time you visit a web site that specializes in portraiture, take a close look at how they handle catchlights. It may surprise you.

[sueq54172]

ok, that was my first time playing with the clone tool. Now he just looks unnatural to me! What do you think? I left it in the color version. Is there anything I can do to not make it look so flat?

[Japaslavian]

You may want to adjust the levels in the image. To me it looks like you could take the highlights up a bit. You may want to try bumping up the contrast as well.

He certainly has very brilliant eyes. I'm pretty jealous, haha!

[clockdoc]

You did a good job of taking out one of the catchlights! Do you mean 'unnatural' because of the size of the catchlights in comparison to the size of his eyes or were you talking about the flat lighting causing the whole image to appear somewhat flat? Dimension is created through shadows and when you have flat lighting you eliminate many of the shadows that add to the character of a face.

I would work on reducung the size of the catchlights.

[sueq54172]

now are the catchlights too small? it was his eyes that looked unnatural.

[Nicole]

I didn't mind the catchlights being larger, but the skin tone is really throwing me. It's very heavily blue/green (or cyan if you will). I can post a different fix to the skin tone if you'd like, but if you have photoshop or the equivalent, try working with curves to reduce the amount of cyan in the picture.