Senior Portraits

[ArtisticMemories]

Hey All!! I am kind of new around here and am checking things out. I am working on improving my portraits. This is a picture of my most recent senior, is there anything anyone can suggest? I dont mind constructive criticism, I think everyone can benefit from it. Thanks in advance.

Canon EOS Rebel T1i
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
F-Stop: f/7.1
Aperture Value: f/7.0
IOS speed: 100
Focal Length: 55mm
No Flash

[dconte50]

I wouldn't consider myself qualified in the least, but I'd say there's a bit too much post processing work done on her skin. It seems to be bleeding into her hair.

[windrider86]

Great pose and perfect smile, ahir and eyes. But I do have to agree that her skin was smoothed out too much

[sk66]

I'd like to see the original, I suspect it's better than the submitted version...WAY too much blur layering...

[ArtisticMemories]

Here is the original, My senior wanted he eyes and smile to POP in the picture. I did some skin smoothing and a soft focus to the outer edge. Thanks for all your input.

[j_m7cl]

hi,

the hair around her shoulders bothers me
i love the way she looks at the lens

best regards
dolfo

[superduperwesman]

Is it just me or is the picture out of focus?

[zona5101]

Originally Posted by superduperwesman

Is it just me or is the picture out of focus?

I think the original is alittle soft. I tried to find the spot of sharpest focus and had trouble, (maybe the teeth?) But at f7 it should be sharper - maybe a artifact of compression for posting here..
.
But back to the original post...like the others have said...too much processing. Have another go at it I am sure there is a better balance of post and original.

[irishmuth]

Definitely too much skin smoothing in the first edit - I agree that the original is better. However, you can do some editing to the original without going overboard. Take a look at my before and after and let me know what you think...I used a Photoshop action that I love called perfect portrait. When I was done, I also used selective coloring to back off the redness just in her cheeks.

Edit: I didn't change the edited image, but I actually just found a trick that I like even better than the whitening layer used in the Perfect Portrait action that I linked to....I used another selective color layer and masked it so it only affected the teeth and then dropped the yellow slider within the yellows of selective color all the way to zero. This made the teeth whiter without an unnatural brightness to them.

[kstiltne]

Originally Posted by irishmuth

Definitely too much skin smoothing in the first edit - I agree that the original is better. However, you can do some editing to the original without going overboard. Take a look at my before and after and let me know what you think...I used a Photoshop action that I love called perfect portrait. When I was done, I also used selective coloring to back off the redness just in her cheeks.

Edit: I didn't change the edited image, but I actually just found a trick that I like even better than the whitening layer used in the Perfect Portrait action that I linked to....I used another selective color layer and masked it so it only affected the teeth and then dropped the yellow slider within the yellows of selective color all the way to zero. This made the teeth whiter without an unnatural brightness to them.

I'd say that is a pretty good edit...nice work