Is this picture of my daughter terrible?

[AprilArchambeau]

She is very pale, and kept switching from sun to shade while running around, and I was just playing with my new nifty fifty :). I am in love with it and want to fix whats possible, I have the raw file, so far no PP was done except curves, and this was compressed to flickr but here goes, be honest :)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2726/4421529458_30eeda36c2_b.jpg

[Mu Eugene]

If you have the shot in RAW, then WB adjustment is not a big issue. Things that can't be fixed in this particular shot are: 1. focus -- sharpest part is the bangs on her forehead 2. framing -- assuming this is not cropped, her head is cut off (I know, it's hard with xxD and Rebel series cameras with less than ideal viewfinder).

Striking blue eyes and strawberry blonde. Keep shoopting. Your daughter will appreciate them especially when she reaches your stage of life.

[Bob_A]

Wow, with those big blue eyes you're going to have lots of nice shots as she grows up.

A couple of things:

1. The white balance is a bit off as the image looks slightly magenta on my monitor

2. The focus does look a bit off, but I'm also wondering if you applied any sharpening which will make things look softer than they really are. If your RAW converter is adding sharpening maybe try shutting it off (with ACR I have my set to sharpen the preview only) and try sharpening in Photoshop using unsharp mask. For a full-sized image settings of 300, 0.3, 0 are a good start, but you'll need less for smaller images.

3. Composition can be improved as Mu Eugene said.

4. The image looks like it was taken mid sentence as she was talking to you.

I hope this was the type of c&c you were looking for :)

[witharebelyell]

DOF looks pretty shallow so I'm guessing you're 1.8ish?? I think if you shoot her square in the eyes its a different picture all together... Hair looks in focus but not eyes... If you're shooting at 1.8 and you're that close... if you're not right on the eyes its just not going to have the right drama... 4inches lower and we'd have a keeper if we ajust the white balance... otherwise put it in the photoalbum, not on the fridge...

[AprilArchambeau]

Yea, I was just playing around, I was standing, and she was so close to me she was almost touching me, and I looked down at her, I LOVE her facial expressions when she says uh-ohhhhhh, thats what she was saying in that one :). Here is what the original looked like.....I think I just need to turn my sharpen down on my camera, might have it a notch too high :)

Oh and of course I fixed her blemish on her face :)

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1222/img8422.jpg

[Bob_A]

Yea, I was just playing around, I was standing, and she was so close to me she was almost touching me, and I looked down at her, I LOVE her facial expressions when she says uh-ohhhhhh, thats what she was saying in that one :). Here is what the original looked like.....I think I just need to turn my sharpen down on my camera, might have it a notch too high :)

Oh and of course I fixed her blemish on her face :)

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1222/img8422.jpg

Your in-camera sharpening setting isn't used when you shoot RAW and convert with ACR. For this image it's not too sharp, it's soft, primarily due to the missed focus..

[AprilArchambeau]

I noticed a good bit that the focus is a tad slow on the nifty fifty, but the lens is good for the price. It was like literally look down and snap, no centering or anything, can any of the focus or anything be fixed in raw?

This was another I liked, the focus is bad but she LOVES her puppy so much, when he fetches she gets all happy and claps :). Makes me smile every time I look at it, he runs so fast its hard to get him in focus with this lens because of it being a bit slow

What would it be called in PP if you wanted to get rid of the harsh light in someone's hair? Its hard to get the right settings in my yard with her and the dog moving into different lights every second, but I was hoping to be able to fix this as well....

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4058/4422032766_e42a2ca794_b.jpg

[Bob_A]

Which RAW converter are you using? In Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) I'd use a combination of the "Exposure" and "Recovery" sliders to try to bring back some of the blown out area, making sure that "Recovery" doesn't go past 30. I'd also test it first just by reducing the exposure slider to see how much is even recoverable. If it's a white spot with no data then the image either goes in the delete bin or I live with the blown out area and concentrate on the rest of the image (snap shot).

You also asked if you can correct for missed focus in post processing. Unfortunately you can't. If the focus isn't off by much it won't be too noticeable to some people as long as you display or print small (example, a 4x6 print).