Experimenting portraiture with natural light

[anniehun]

Hi Everyone,

The photo session I planned was about experimenting natural light in portraits. Sadly, my "model" arrived late, leaving me with barely enough light to use, resulting more or less noise in my pics.
However and apart from that, please let me know what you think about this photo. I am open to all kinds of critique, from whatever aspect you want to approach. I`d like to improve and appreciate your tips on how-to!

From Studio portraits 2010

Nikon D60
Focal length 100.0 mm
Aperture f/5.0
ISO 400
Exposure time 1/10

[autofocus]

I played with the image a little...it can be brought back some using the Shadow / Highlight tool in Photoshop. One quick observation about jewelry in portraits...unless it's something very unique and relevant to the subject, it tends to draw your eye away from the face. A little less white of eyes showing is also something to consider...a small step to camera right would have eliminated that. All that said...not too bad If you want to see my edit, I'll post it with your permission

Vince

[SusanH1970]

I also had a play - I opened it in ACR and brought up the exposure, then used the recovery slider to bring the few blown highlights back.

It appears your white balance is way off - she looks very magenta/blue. I also cropped a bit tighter from the right side and it balanced the composition out a bit.

Focus is excellent and I like the catchlights.

For noise, you can use the free community version of Noiseware by Imagenomic. Works great! The only pain in the butt about the free version is you have to open the image separately in that program, as opposed to the versions you pay for that are simple Photoshop plug-ins.

[LoveDSLR]

If you do people photography then you must fix the skin tone first. Sample for illustration purposes.



BTW, skin smoothing in based on auto-focus's simple technique. Best Soft Filter and Blemish removal program thats free???

[SusanH1970]

LoveDSLR, those skin tones are just about perfect. Nice job.

[autofocus]

Hey Thanks LoveDSLR...I'm glad somebody saw my little hint for skin smoothing. I think it does a pretty nice job without "over doing it."

Vince

[autofocus]

What's good about this photo is that in spite of the exposure being off, it's fixable...my version slightly different than LoveDSLR's, but either an example of being able to save an image

[LoveDSLR]

Originally Posted by SusanH1970

LoveDSLR, those skin tones are just about perfect. Nice job.

Thanks...just lucky I guess. You should see my first version.

Originally Posted by auto-focus

Hey Thanks LoveDSLR...I'm glad somebody saw my little hint for skin smoothing. I think it does a pretty nice job without "over doing it."

Thx! I never pass a good hint and it is a great way to sharpen my pp skill.

[SusanH1970]

LOL....yeah, that other one is kinda....jaundiced. Again, I do love the one you posted earlier.

[anniehun]

Thanks, Guys. I only have Picasa. Best I can do with that is:

From Studio portraits 2010