First family portrait

[brainz11203]

Hey guys i did some family portraits for a friend. im not sure how i want to edit them to give them that pro look. i used one flash bounced off the ceiling. Backdrop is a sheet.

Please Critique good and bad.

I'll start off, I think the backdrop looks flat. how do you think i can fix that

[graciousness]

Hello there and welcome to DPS

Would you please provide your EXIF data as per critique forum rules and also this helps with critiquing photos.

Also, what editing softwares do you use? It will help to know so that people can advice you better on how you can improve this. Do you have photoshop?

I think you've done well with your bounced flash and getting everyone in focus and well exposed. The only thing is that you needed some hair light to separate them from the background. As it is, their hairs are blending with the black background.

I can't think of anything really to make that background a bit less flat...

If you have photoshop, you can add a new layer and add soft light (at around 10-30%) to this to make them pop just a little and perhaps that may help a little with the background. I am not sure what soft light in photoshop will do to black background as I haven't tried it on one, but go see anyway.

Cheers,

Grace

[brainz11203]

Thanks for the info im new to this

Exif
Canon T2i
43mm
1/60 @f /8.0
iso 800
lens EF-s18-55mm

[graciousness]

What editing software do you have or use?

[Doug Sundseth]

Color balance seems just a bit off and the exposure might be a quarter stop or so high (particularly on the father and son). I'd also crop in from the right to move the family out of the center of the picture. (Optionally, you could crop in from both sides to fill the frame with the group, which works pretty well for group shots.)

Those are minor, though. They're pretty easily fixed in post, and the photo is quite nice.

If you want to add more separation in post, you're going to be in for a fair amount of work. You'll probably need to hand-select the background (always painful when the background is the nearly the same color as the subjects) and replace it with something more interesting. If you do that, I'd probably use a circular gradient from mid-gray to dark gray.

In future, I'd recommend either a background wash light to create the gradient at the time you shoot or hair lights to better define the subjects' borders.