First portrait shoot

[8ounty]

I finally managed to convince my sister to let me take a few shots of her to help me on my road to portrait photography stardom! I positioned her on the floor with a good light source coming from camera-right, reflector set up to camera left and diffused flash bounced off the ceiling.
The original shot was a little under-exposed, so some PP work has been done, exposure, contrast, softening, doge and burn etc - all in all I think the image turned out pretty well, but of course I still need some feedback from you all to help me develop and improve.


Exif:
Canon 20D with 18-55mm kit lens
Flash used
f/5.6
shutter: 1/250sec
ISO 200
focal length: 47mm

[toasted75]

Generally speaking - I like it

Nice focus on the eyes and love the way it just starts to go out of focus on her shoulder and the back part of her hair.

but the forehead and nose are a bit too shiny and kind of distracting.

...of course I've only had my camera for a month, so you might want to wait for some more expert commentary, but that's my opinion at least. Nice shot with the kit lens at any rate

[RLucas]

I like the composition, her expression, and the way her face fill the frame. The only thing I would change is the color balance. If you shot it in RAW, you could warm up the white balance, and pull some of the magenta out. The magenta cast is especially noticeable around her eyes.
Other than that, it's a great effort!

[8ounty]

Now you mention it, the magenta is quite strong - I never even noticed it! Luckily I always shoot in RAW so this can be fixed, tho I have a funny feeling this was more a PP error - easily sorted though.

Thanks for the feedback

[natek313]

Originally Posted by RLucas

I like the composition, her expression, and the way her face fill the frame. The only thing I would change is the color balance. If you shot it in RAW, you could warm up the white balance, and pull some of the magenta out. The magenta cast is especially noticeable around her eyes.
Other than that, it's a great effort!

+1 here.

Also, as was mentioned already, your lighting is a bit hot on her forehead and nose. What did you do for lighting?

[Indigo November]

I hope you don't mind, I played around with it a bit. Tried to remove the magenta cast and then did a bit of dodging and burning, and a few minor curves adjustments. I can tell you what I did if you like.

[8ounty]

I don't mind you having a tweak, and I can pretty much see what you've done and where/how you've done it - it very nearly matches what I did earlier, but at least I had the RAW to play with! I think my problem (as I'm sure many other people suffer from this) was being slightly blinded by what I thought was a great image and not noticing the little adjustments needed, I basically just needed someone to 'proof read' my work!

Thanks again all, I'll go try all this on another shot from this shoot