First Pregnant Shot

[miyukisarah]

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T1i
Shutter: 1/200
Aperture: 4.5/f
Focal Length: 78mm
ISO: 100
Exposure Bias: 0.00
Flash: On

This is a woman from my church who is obviously VERY pregnant. With triplets! I like the DOF of the image but I feel like the image as a whole is too light. I want to make her pop out from the background more. I tried fiddling around with it in photoshoot but I'm not getting quite what I want. Any suggestions? (Critiques on other things are welcome) This is the original, unedited picture.

Feel free to edit, but please let me know what you did step by step

[sybren]

She's quite pregnant indeed! And with triplets... phew!

If possible, I would try to re-take the photo without the red car in the background. Also the tree intersecting with her head and shoulder could use another spot. If reshooting impossible, maybe a conversion to black & white would lessen the distraction of the car. It'll also make working with curves and levels easier, as there are no colours to go whacky.

[miyukisarah]

Any better? Or is this too harsh?
I would do the shoot again but she's on bed rest until the babies come.

[sybren]

The distractions are much less now, which is good. I do think the photo is too harsh. Try lowering the contrast, and maybe blurring the background a bit.

[miyukisarah]

Try #3 Any better?

[mandyatm]

The last version is better, although still a little dark. The original picture is overexposed, probably due to the flash. You can adjust the exposure and if you want her to pop more, you can try adding a layer and setting it to overlay or multiply, and reducing the opacity. and Having her under the tree might have been better. Here is my quick edit:


-duplicate layer, adjust levels by moving the middle slider to the right (to .8 in PSE 8)
-increased saturation slightly on all of the image except the red truck, which was too bright already, flatten image
-add gaussian blur, use layer mask to remove blur from the subject, flatten
-add layer and change blending mode to soft light, reduce to 20% opacity, flatten
-cropped and added a little vignette

Just decreasing the exposure and adding a little contrast will go a long way though. Hope this helps.

[starrylaurie]

Since you can't retake this pic, why not play with it a bit more? I don't think the black and white really serves her well here. If you'll use the curves tool, you can add the dimension of color you're lacking here. Also, the red truck really stands out, so if you'll mask it off and color it a greyish color (you can desat this) it's not as bad. I also masked off the lady and desaturated the background to a -40. Additionally, taking a sliver off of the left side helps declutter the background. Here's how this turns out. (Photo is private on my stream)

[starrylaurie]

I like the additional gaussian blur that mandyatm added to the background. I'd definitely do that in a long edit. =)

[tasmo2]

OK here is my edit.. I just did basic stuff.
B&W the background
adjust hue and sat
Then blended her in