Portrait C&C

[kukles]

Pretty much my first time doing a portrait shoot. My friend needed to add to her acting portfolio and asked me if I would like to give it a shot. I like some more than others, but am just looking for C&C. BTW, she was not supposed to be smiling in these, hence the lack thereof.

These were taken with my 5Dc and mostly 135L, a couple with the 70-200 f/4L IS, all natural lighting.

1.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5267/5691693042_bd71a87ae4_b.jpg

2.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5026/5691692344_a01d165501_b.jpg

3.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5022/5691691646_a3444f587e_b.jpg

4.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5064/5691117619_7c8c76ffeb_b.jpg

5.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5149/5691115405_a6bc8f201c_b.jpg

6.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5028/5691691970_d804a4235c_b.jpg

7.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5027/5691691276_7c62017131_b.jpg

[Nissaea]

i think she will be very pleased. these are stunning.

[4jrosario]

I did a little improvement in this photo

[Spike44]

Think you did very well - the exposure, poses (I prefer the traditional 3/4 view for women) lighting and backgrounds are pretty darn good - I would be careful about skin smoothing esp if she is not allowed to smile - she looks great without anyway.
I might do a bit of cropping especially for the tops for#1 and #2.
I also think you can do more sharpening without adversely affecting her skin....if it does just erase around everything except the eyes (of course).
EDIT:
I could not resist -

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a323/rathgarb/Pix/5691117619_7c8c76ffeb_b2ppwww.jpg

[jeppoy]

she's very pretty, it would be fun shoot her with a concept.

[kukles]

I did a little improvement in this photo

I like this, could you explain your skin smoothing technique? Trying to learn from youtube has produced lackluster results.

Think you did very well - the exposure, poses (I prefer the traditional 3/4 view for women) lighting and backgrounds are pretty darn good - I would be careful about skin smoothing esp if she is not allowed to smile - she looks great without anyway.
I might do a bit of cropping especially for the tops for#1 and #2.
I also think you can do more sharpening without adversely affecting her skin....if it does just erase around everything except the eyes (of course).
EDIT:
I could not resist -


I like your edit a lot as well. I would also appreciate if you could give me a hint as to your process for skin...

So much to learn...:)

[chinchinxx]

Hello

I did a quick edit too I hope you dont mind. I went for a more subtle edit with this one.

Cropped it a bit as suggested by Spike44. I also agree with the poses. I think they work well for the model and the set.

[bior]

Besides brightening/warming up #4, I don't have any criticisms. They're all well lit, posed, and composed. Good job

[themadman]

They look good to me in general. It seems like the colors are slightly off from photo to photo, number 4 looks especially cool, number 2 looks green/yellower than number 3. I personally would have liked at least one shot of the series to have some background instead of a complete blur, but whatever floats your boat.

[Spike44]

I like your edit a lot as well. I would also appreciate if you could give me a hint as to your process for skin...

So much to learn...:)

I made a few adjustments before smoothing - set white and black points, applied "defog" to a minimum for extra POP, warmed it up using saturation - reds, cropped it and horizontally flipped a duplicate layer to use the upper left corner to minimize the black right corner.
I then just used smart blur on a duplicate layer with a value of 1.5 pix, threshold of about 20 . I then erased with a soft brush all areas other than face and reduced layer opacity a lot.
Not sure if I sharpened the eyes in there somewhere....probably.
Your model has textured skin so you don't have to add back grain (noise) as some suggest - all you need to do is reduce opacity until you see some texture like pores, etc. If you don't, it has that plastic unnatural look.

[4jrosario]

Photo 3 Make Up Improvement

[HappySnapper90]

She has that facial expression down.

[erinavery]

nice work!

i felt like playing a bit with it too. :)
http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv101/erinaavery13/5691691646_a3444f587e_bxx1.jpg

[bl4scott]

Really liked them, #4 & #5, her eyes aren't opened the same and seem a bit weird and distracting to me.

[Ebwly]

what lenses did you use? aperture/ shutter? iso? Just curious, cos you have good bokeh there.

[kukles]

what lenses did you use? aperture/ shutter? iso? Just curious, cos you have good bokeh there.

3, 6, 7 are my 70-200 f/4L IS at f/4, camera on Av, with shutter speeds of between 1/100 and 1/200

The rest are the 135L at f/2, again camera on Av, shutter at either 1/200 or 1/250

ISO was mainly at 50 and with the 70-200 went to 250 with my 5Dc

Thanks for the C&C so far...I am going to rework the processing a bit this weekend :)