Kinda intimidating posting with all the great photos by everyone else. Here's a few of my natty light portraits
Amanda, you have done well here, feel comfortable posting with everyone else, it is the best way to learn. Just learn to take criticism constructively and know that it is meant to help you improve.
Your white balance is off, you can use "levels" to define the white, grey, and black points to dramatically improve this. It will usually make the image pop by this method alone. See my attached edits. I did "levels" and "highlight and shadows recovery" to even the light on his face and reduce the blown out whites in background. I added just a touch of clarity and contrast, then the image still had a yellowish cast so I went to channels and reduce yellow saturations and increased orange and red to give him more of a natural skin color.
I also selected his eyes, then increased the sats a little and sharpened them, in one image his teeth were yellow so I lightened them with brightness increase and decreased saturation. Be careful not to overdo this. keep it natural.
I sharpened the overall image and applied a little noise reduction to smooth out his skin
Lastly I cropped the tall image with the sky all blown out, no need for that, needed more focus on the subject.
I hope this helps
keep up the good work!
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lol
