My 7-year old cousin (what can I do to improve this?)

[Rajah Sulayman]

I'm trying to improve my portrait workflow and I'm wondering what else I could do to this to help it pop a little. I sharpened the eyes to help bring out the color, and I applied some very basic adjustment layers (a warming filter, minor level tweaks, etc..). It's a good shot, but it still feels like something may be missing from making it a great shot.

Thoughts?

[bleaudoggie]

I like the shot but find that I'm very distracted by the blue block to the left of the face. As for everything else, I'm still learning myself so I'll let someone else comment on that.

[jiminyClickit]

rajah_sulayman,

Do the blue, purple, yellow, red, and green items hold a special significance to your subject or to you? The portrait 25% of this is very good, just sort of surrounded by "stuff."

[Mr. Clipit]

I agree with bleaudoggie, that blue bloc is quite distracting, and wants to be the focal point itself. The rest is excellent though, sharp portrait with blurred yet colorful background.

[Rajah Sulayman]

The blocks were left there primarily to frame the subject. I'll upload a crop later tonight (after laundry and dinner and cetera) and see how that one looks.

Thanks!

[Rajah Sulayman]

Comments in mind, here's what I came up with. I basically just cropped it, blurred and darkened the non-subject areas, tossed a quick smartsharpen on the subject, and tweaked her saturation a bit.

I didn't crop out the right-hand blocks because I wanna keep it closer to being portrait-sized/shaped vs the squarish shape that would result from cropping all the way into the face. Also, I like the coat + shirt contrast and colors. Hopefully the blurring and darkening of the blocks will be enough to keep it from distracting too much.

What do you guys think?

p.s. The selection halo is a little evident around her. I didn't spend too much time on getting the mask perfect since this was just a comparative test to see if I liked it first before doing it on a more meticulous level.

[FrankenPengie]

This one's tough rajah. Try cropping a little below the purple part of the stump. This also loses the clumpy shadows in the shirt. A little tighter on the right to lose the dark line right of the white thingy on the shelf. You might go back to the original and start be leveling the mid-scene shelf first.

Looks like the foreground framing objects were too tight in the shot.

[Rajah Sulayman]

Welp, here's what I was able to come up with. Cropped it down to an 2:3 ratio and cleaned up some of the distractions. The front blocks are still present, but nowhere near as dominant as they were. And I masked her and tossed a quick layer to help de-emphasize the shelves.

I definitely think it works better than it did (thanks again for all the input), though I am a little disappointed in that I thought I was being clever by framing her within the blocks she was playing with.

All in all, though, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Not bad for a shot that had no real setup beyond her looking up from her blocks for a split-second to smile at the camera. ^_^

p.s. Keep forgetting imageshack wipes ExIF data on upload. This was shot at f/1.4 @ 1/30s at ISO-100.

[jiminyClickit]

rajah_sulayman,

Willingness to keep an open mind will save many of your future shots, though. Thanks for trying suggestions (less work for me) and allowing us to learn along.

Either/both of these last two seem more portrait-strong. Sometimes to overcome my wanting to hold on to too much background/foreground, I'll start a crop around eyes, nose, mouth, and just zoom out until the balance favors the subject and the surroundings, adding instead of trimming away. Just one more possibility.

You could trim away everything but those eyes and still have a fine work.

[Sandie]

I like the idea of framing too, but I think in this case your blocks were too close to you. I think that blue block sticking out from the others made it especially distracting too.

I think you have a great strong image now with this one, she is a great subject too. I would see if you could take her to the park or a playground and try framing her with things like swing chains, monkey bars, climbing ropes, etc... she has a very playful personality that you caught well.