Male Senior Portraits

[RebeccaJoy]

Hello!

I had my first male Senior Portrait session the other day and thought the photos turned out well, but a little bit of Photoshop always helps... Here is a before and after from the session.

Before:


After:


First, I adjusted the white balance in Adobe Camera Raw to warm it up a bit.
Then I brought the photo into CS4 and used the patch tool to clear blemishes and brighten under his eyes.
I sharpened the image with both a high pass and unsharp masks, brightened with curves, enhanced the eyes, whitened his teeth, then smoothed and brightened his skin a tiny bit.
After that I cropped the image and burned the edges of the photo slightly.

Any comments are appreciated!

[zona5101]

Very nice edit!

[JeffSmith]

Nice edit, but those upward shots in portraits making the subject look down on the viewer give the subject a look of "superiority", which I think is sometimes misunderstood and can give the wrong impression; can make them look less friendly.

[LeeR]

The rule of thumb is that men usually look better when looking up at them, women when looking down on them, but again, it's only a rule of thumb, not a commandment.

I ran your image through my system to see if I could do any better and I have to say yours looks every bit as good as my best attempt. I would suggest a couple of things, however. First, I would keep 'smoothing' to a minimum on men. Healing blemishes is fine, but most of us are pretty proud of our ruggedness and silky skin just doesn't equate.

In my film days, every portrait photographer worth his/her salt was using a film called "Velvia" because it had a decided warm cast to it and made people look great. For this reason I can't blame anyone for bumping the WB just a bit to give nature a helping hand, but it's important to begin at an accurate starting point. Warming an image that is out of kilter can give you some really unpleasant results.

[RebeccaJoy]

Thanks for the great comments and feedback! I will definitely keep them in mind for future sessions!!

[vbhakuni]

Hey nice work.....i like the after portrait...

[sedetweiler]

I agree with the above posters. I tend to shoot from a lower position when I want dominance, this is called a "hero shot". So, in using this angle you are putting the young man into a powerful light for sure. I also prefer the warmer tone, but I would watch the eyes and teeth. If they start to look to yellow you know you have gone to far. What you have now is perfect imho.

Also, you may have demonstrated a VERY valuable lesson here if you meant to or not. In your original photo you shot is a bit wide and needed to crop in for the final. ALWAYS leave yourself a bit of wiggle room for the crop. Not only did you finish the portrait very well, but you also demonstrated a great lesson in proper framing for later cropping.

[sedetweiler]

Just another quick note: Your watermark is a bit distracting. You might want to make it smaller or at least reduce the opacity so the eye does not find it unless it is looking for it on purpose. If you look at my work on here or on my blog, you will often have to look for the watermark to find it. Now on my rough proofs I have an obnoxious watermark, just so they don't accidentally use the wrong one.