To catch a smile

[chris2471]

This is a shot of my girlfriends daughter I took when we brought our kids to the CT science center. I'm working on sharpening my skills photographing people, as I seem to be better at nature shots. I'm not very good at PP, but I did my best to bring out her eyes and the color of her hair. The SOOC has more color to her skin. I cropped out the right side, as it offered nothing but a blurry shoulder lol. Do you like the comp? Does my edit leave it feeling too cold or lacking color? Any other CC is welcome, thanks for looking!





Camera Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi
Exposure 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture f/2.5
Focal Length 50 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

[becksjd]

Hi! She is super cute, and what a great smile! So I find the colours in her skin to be far too cold. You need to bump the saturation up and warm up her skin. As for composition I think the way her shoulders are makes it a little unflattering and awkward. The perspective makes them look so wide. If her shoulders were more turned to the side where you could just see one that would be a bit better I think. And one nit picky thing I would do is whiten her teeth a bit in PP. These are just my opinions. Thanks for sharing the photo!

[SusanH1970]

Originally Posted by becksjd

You need to bump the saturation up and warm up her skin.

Agreed with your CC about warming her up, but PLEASE don't bump saturation to do so.

Color balance in Photoshop and/or a few tweaks in ACR will be much more effective and realistic - white balance needs to be adjusted. Bumping saturation as it is only increases the intensity of the color that is incorrect and makes it worse.

I'm seeing a lot of blue and magenta. Bumping saturation would make her purple. I don't have time to play now but magenta and blue needs to be balanced with yellow and green to warm her up. Chris, if I may, I'll try to give a play tomorrow?

[chris2471]

Thanks for your comments. Susan, you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Just tell me what you did so I can learn LOL

[SusanH1970]

Originally Posted by chris2471

Thanks for your comments. Susan, you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Just tell me what you did so I can learn LOL

Been busy and just saw this - sometime later in the week when all the insanity has calmed down I'll play.

[scubajen]

I look forward to seeing what Susan does with the photo. My main issue is that the focus fell on her hair, not on her eyes.