My first studio photos.

[VividRyan]

These were taken at a friend’s studio this evening, she let me practice some. Shooting in a studio is fun but very challenging trying to control shadows and fills. :)

I used 3 alien b800's 1 with med softbox as main light and 2nd was a umbrella fill and 3rd was bounced off back wall. shoot with a 20d with the 18-55 lens kit.

What do you think for my first time out?


http://ryanl.shackspace.com/nikki/nikki3.jpg

http://ryanl.shackspace.com/nikki/nikki4.jpg

[andygrif]

Love to see them, unfortunately it won't download the shots from your webspace....any chance you can attatch them here?

[alsmith]

I really like the second one alot. It seems very natural and the posing is good. That seems to be that hardest part for me is getting people to pose well that are uncomfortable.

My only comment on the second one is that her eye's are crystal clear but his are slightly out of focus. To me the eye's are the most important part of a portrait.

[garbidz]

congrats
you've super captured what you were after, the essential is dix points

[InskiP]

Absolutely love the first one-you've captured a special moment between the two of them.
I like the second one as well, but it's typical of what you see all the time.

[Andy_T]

I like both images very much. :D

Best regards,
Andy

[Titus213]

I like the light, pose, and framing. Both photos look a tad soft to me. Have you applied softening in post process?

[VividRyan]

I like the light, pose, and framing. Both photos look a tad soft to me. Have you applied softening in post process?


yes, I applied a little softness to them except around the eyes.

[ecobo]

They are pretty soft for my taste, but you've done some good job with the lighting.

[tonytony]

Well done Ryan both photos are well taken. However, as Nikolay highlighted, they are soft, and this may be appreciated or not according to the person's taste.

[davidfig]

Well done Ryan both photos are well taken. However, as Nikolay highlighted, they are soft, and this may be appreciated or not according to the person's taste.

Don't think they are soft. Looks like glow was added.

[tonytony]

Don't think they are soft. Looks like glow was added.

Sorry David, by Soft I meant "Soft filter" look... :)
I can see the glow is intentional, that's why I said that it may or may not be appreciated by the viewer.

[VividRyan]

ok here they are with no softness. I personally like the soft dreamy look.

http://ryanl.shackspace.com/nikki/nikki3b.jpg

http://ryanl.shackspace.com/nikki/nikki4b.jpg

[michael.luczkow]

much better soft. great work. like the first one a lot.

[Titus213]

Hmmm, these are terrific. Not sure now, perhaps the 'soft' version wasn't that soft after all. At any rate, it's a nice job.

[blundar]

When you do selective softening, you are supposed to also sharpen the bottom nose lines, lips, and teeth otherwise the whole thing looks out of focus. A little less soft glow also works better. You really need to just soften up some of the skin imperfections in a subtle way and still keep enough detail to make it look like an unaltered picture.

[quickben]

I think the colour one is better after the softening and the b&w one better before the softening. I think the tricky part is the fact that the girl has very good skin while the guy has a few imperfections (still has better skin than me, though). I would apply a very slight gaussian blur to the guy's skin and leave the rest alone. His eyes are sharp enough, I reckon.

The black & white is a cracker without the softness :-)

Gary.

[mackb]

I always liked "softer" portraits better, but I received some neg feedback also. I guess it is just personal taste.......................BTW, I like the soft ones better.

Nice job!

[tupe]

I like the expressions, composition, lighting, and background.

As far as the softness goes, somewhere in between on the color shot. You might try one pixel of
median noise on the original, or two and fade it a bit. The soft BW looks good to me.

[VividRyan]

what I did in photoshop was duplicated the layer, gaussian blurred the top one, then turned the opacity to 40%.

Maybe a 25/30 % would look better and not so oversoft.

Thanks to everyone for the comments. No way to get better unless you hear the truth :)

[ctymom]

I like the first photo with the soft look, but prefer the second photo being sharp. They are both very nice shots! I cant wait to get a studio setup to take photos like this.

Pamela

[PEACHMAN]

Ya to all the above...a bit soft but when viewing the sharpness of the original then softness needed to be added....nice capture and composition...They are obviously happy with each other , not just going thru the steps !