What would you change in this photo?

[Sereia]

Hello everyone!

I am trying to improve my photo skills and I think I have improved a bit since I found this site and all the information and good critiques from this site,so once again I am turning to you to ask you your comments about the following picture.

It is a picture of my son, taken with natural light, I just darkened the background and increase the contrast and sharpened it a bit. I would like to know your opinions about it mainly the PP, what would you do different and why and everything you find you should mention about this picture!
Thank you so much for your attention.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/Sereia1/Fotos%20novas/canonsite-1.jpg

[bsmall]

I have a couple of suggestions :)

First of all, before the PP stuff, you cut off the top of your son's head.

Second, I notice that you blacked out the background in the upper left corner. I would suggest smoothing this out more, its a little jagged in some areas.

Great picture though :)

[Sereia]

Thank you so much Ben:)

But besides that what do you think about lights and colors and skin shade?

[gizas]

I think the bright orange is distracting the eye from the subject, so I would maybe play a bit with the saturation of the skin in comparison to the background color.

[LolaStar]

The orange edge definitely needs to be smoothed out. The PP is very obvious. I also agree with the saturation of the orange, perhaps bring it down a little as it'll make him stand out a little more.

My monitor isn't calibrated so I'm not sure if it's just me but there's a slight orange hue to his skin and a little bit of a hotspot on his forehead.

Really nice sharp image though. You could maybe play around with the levels too.

[bobbyz]

With kids you don't need much if any pp.

Next time throw a white towel or quit or some white sheet/curtain on that orange chair. Make it drape the chair so you can't see anything in the bg. Make him wear something white, preferably full sleeve. Now try same shot. It will really show the face. Keeping things simple will improve your pictures more than worrying what to do in pp. Just my 2 cents.

[Sereia]

Thank you all for your help and tips and constructive criticism, it makes me grow as n amateur photographer (sp?).

I am always shootong them, my oldest doesn't think that's funny anymore (can't blame her) my youngest... well, he doesn't choose yet, my luck! This picture I just happened to like the natural light and the position and I shot, nothing was set, but I will defently try the white sheet and white cloths and then I will post th results :)
Meanwhile I just reedited the picture above. In fact I don't do that much PP it is just levels, a bit of des/saturation and sharpen. What do you think about this one, improvement or not that much?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/Sereia1/Fotos%20novas/2010_02_21_0008a.jpg

[Sereia]

Anyone?
Thank you!

[Kristy]

I like the orange color.. it's vibrant and works just fine.
His skin tone seems like you desaturated it, or lightened it too much or something.. There are some hot spots on his skin, and I'm not sure if it's due to the PP or the original exposure.

There is something strange about the inner rim of his upper eyelid....? Maybe it a flash spot from camera flash? Or maybe is an artifact that appered during your sharpening? Not sure.

Do you mind posting the unedited shot.. I'd process it for you and tell you what I did and see if that helps you at all. But for sure... I would not desaturate the orange at all... If nothing else, try shooting on the orange, but putting the baby in an outfit that is also vibrant...

Check out this lady's work.. she does everything with tons of color and gets away with it.. and if you notice she uses orange all the time... so it can be done, and done well, if everything is in place. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bethjansenphotography/

[bobbyz]

Check out this lady's work.. she does everything with tons of color and gets away with it.. and if you notice she uses orange all the time... so it can be done, and done well, if everything is in place. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bethjansenphotography/

Nice link.

[Sereia]

I like the orange color.. it's vibrant and works just fine.
His skin tone seems like you desaturated it, or lightened it too much or something.. There are some hot spots on his skin, and I'm not sure if it's due to the PP or the original exposure.

There is something strange about the inner rim of his upper eyelid....? Maybe it a flash spot from camera flash? Or maybe is an artifact that appered during your sharpening? Not sure.

Do you mind posting the unedited shot.. I'd process it for you and tell you what I did and see if that helps you at all. But for sure... I would not desaturate the orange at all... If nothing else, try shooting on the orange, but putting the baby in an outfit that is also vibrant...

Check out this lady's work.. she does everything with tons of color and gets away with it.. and if you notice she uses orange all the time... so it can be done, and done well, if everything is in place. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bethjansenphotography/

Thank you so much Kristy, I love your work:)

Here it is the image:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/Sereia1/Fotos%20novas/2010_02_21_0007.jpg
I just used natural light, no flas:)!

Isaw the link you posted and I was so impressed with the colours, how does she do it like that?

Thank you once again:)

[Kristy]

I'm not sure what Beth Jansen does to pop the colors like that... seems to be pushing the curves adjustment to a limit... I bet she has nice action that does it, because all of her work is very uniform that way.. ;)

Okay... so you original is just overexposed a little bit.... So that is why it is lacking in color tone, and also contrast...

Quick adjustment of curves goes a long way...

His eyes are not in focus, so you can copy them to their own layer and work them separately. USM applied around 39-38-0 and I dodged the highlights a wee bit, and burned the iris edges and the lashes and brows...

Since his face is lacking color, I used the sponge tool and saturated his lips, cheeks, and parts of his forehead and chin, just to make it seem blushed... (set the tool to low opacity like only 10% and use a round soft brush.. a big one... makes it more natural.)

Then I burned the shadows in his hair to give it some dimension.... added a warming filter boosted saturation (masked off parts of the bean bag) and sharpened... pretty quick fix really...

Here's my screen shot of the layers palate, and curves adjustment, along with the finished image...

I hope this helps you a little bit.. :)

[queenbee288]

Cute baby. Great edit Kristy.

[Pixerfun]

Cute picture of a cute baby! I love Kristy's edit. PP is a whole other area to learn isn't it??

[Sereia]

Kristy,

THANK YOU so much for your time and excellent work with my picture, I can defently see the difference and just from this I have learned a few things about PS I didn't know. I am portuguese and my PSis in english and although I can speak english and understand it very well there are some technical terms I don't kow so today I just learned a few more things about this software... from you:)

Once again thank you very much... I really really love the way you worked the picture:)