critique my first shoot with this model

My first shoot from model mayhem, i'm looking for some constructive criticism, anything I should change before turning them in to her? Should they be more post processed?

Also, which of these 2 edits are better?

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Just my noob opinion but the ones without the blown out sky look best. But watch your background (fence coming out of her head etc...).

Agreed blown out sky and watch the backgrounds. Of the two edits, the one on the right for sure, it's much warmer, which might not be considered "correct" but it looks better to most people as most people prefer a warmer look. And maybe darken the blacks just a touch more on each! But they look very very good!

WB seems pretty consistant! Exposure looks pretty good too, but then again my monitor here at work isn't calibrated. I will say though that her face looks a bit dark in the last image. Have to get a little more light on her face, but again. As already mentioned have to watch the blown out sky.

Love the setting, and the background look good to me. Where were these shot?

And as a final note...gorgeous model!

It appears to me that you are making global adjustments to your images which result in the model being exposed mostly correctly but the backgrounds way overexposed. All of the posted images have over-exposed backgrounds; the only one that is mostly correct is IMG_8507 and even then the top of the deck railing and the table top are overexposed. You need to learn how to use an image editor and layer masking to do selective editing rather than global edits.

I looked at IMG_8686 in full view and it appears that there are animal droppings all over the deck and especially just to the right of her shoes.

Were any of these image shot with a flash?

PixelMagic wrote in post #16376476
It appears to me that you are making global adjustments ...

Yep. You have to get out of the LR, I'm afraid.

The "IMG_8507-1a b" and the last one are the winners, in my opinion.

Just take your time, mate - you have a gorgeous stuff there.

i think it should be possible to replace the over exposed sky with the one that
blend with the scene. here is one attempt.

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I couldn't recover the sky from the other photos. That day was foggy and flat since it was pre-rain clouds. The shots where there is clouds and blue sky are the only ones I managed to edit in the sky because the clouds were kind enough to move for those shots lol.

Here is what the image looks like if I try to bring out the sky exactly how I did it for the other shots with the nice sky.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …75523744@N02/10​352449743/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …75523744@N02/10​352211526/

rivas8409 wrote in post #16376324
WB seems pretty consistant! Exposure looks pretty good too, but then again my monitor here at work isn't calibrated. I will say though that her face looks a bit dark in the last image. Have to get a little more light on her face, but again. As already mentioned have to watch the blown out sky.

Love the setting, and the background look good to me. Where were these shot?

And as a final note...gorgeous model!

I added a bit more light to her face on that one, thanks for pointing that out for me, I didn't notice so much .

These were shot at Oso Flaco lake trail in the central coast. It's a trail that leads to the beach, but we unfortunately didn't make it to the beach because it was starting to drizzle.

PixelMagic wrote in post #16376476
It appears to me that you are making global adjustments to your images which result in the model being exposed mostly correctly but the backgrounds way overexposed. All of the posted images have over-exposed backgrounds; the only one that is mostly correct is IMG_8507 and even then the top of the deck railing and the table top are overexposed. You need to learn how to use an image editor and layer masking to do selective editing rather than global edits.

I looked at IMG_8686 in full view and it appears that there are animal droppings all over the deck and especially just to the right of her shoes.

Were any of these image shot with a flash?

I only shot a few with flash. It was my first time using flash on a shoot, even though I practiced before the shoot I still felt uncomfortable and ended up mostly using natural light and a reflector.
From the photos in this thread, IMG_8371-1a , is the only one I shot with flash, then just about 2-3 others on my computer.

And good call, I edited out those droppings. On some of the images I purposely over-exposed the background because I thought it gave it a softer look , I didn't think I over-exposed the others too much (except the sky, which was like that in camera). This is why I bought some umbrellas to use with my flashes so I could learn to expose both subject and background appropriately, but I still feel very uncomfortable using it because I can't seem to get it right, ever.

nittaya wrote in post #16380755
i think it should be possible to replace the over exposed sky with the one that
blend with the scene. here is one attempt.

That looks nice! So is that sky from a different image? I don't know how you did it to blend nicely with the edges of the background, I have failed at that the last time I attempted it.

one edit on 8686. For lighting you can use shoot through umbrella . as long as it is not windy
outside it is very easy to use it, cost less , easy to carry and easy to work with . with shoot
through umbrellas you get good result and post processing to enhance the pictures would be
also minimum.

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you can use quick selection tool or any other method such as brush tool for making a mask. once you put the
mask , the new sky would look very unnatural similar to your effort of replacing the sky. the trick is to guassian blur the mask
usually heavily. and then use very soft brush for fine tuning. this trick works fine when you want to replace the sky.
it does not take much time it took me just a minute or two.

Here's my attempt...

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The above image is a example of where a dash of fill flash does wonders, not only to allow for dropping the ambient by 1/3, but get some more light on the face, especially the eyes.