Shot of a friend C&C which edit is better

Ok I just messing around with my umbrella and got this shot, first tell me what i can do better, and then which edit it better thanks.

Also I have been noticing that my lense has been missing focus at first i thought it was user error but now i dont know. It seems in this pic that the wood is sharper than his face and i know i had the focus point on his eye, i made sure of it. I have had this same problem with many of my pictures any ideas.

1.

I like the second picture best ..

dont ask me why, just do ..

I like the second pic

i really like the edit on the second shot!

I prefer the second edit as well.

Perhaps the second or a black and white because the color of the shirt has a better impact with the background, the blue I see it too strong in this context.

Thank for the replies, i too liked the second much better

anyone have any ideas on the focusing issues

In portraits, focusing on the eyes is key. If the eyes are sharp the rest doesn't matter so much.

In set-up shots such as this you can set your focusing spot on the bridge of his nose and use f8 or so to get more depth of field. Focus/recompose works but can be iffy sometimes.

Looks like focus is on his shoulder here.

alessandro2009 wrote in post #8078614
Perhaps the second or a black and white because the color of the shirt has a better impact with the background, the blue I see it too strong in this context.

+1 I think b&w would work well w/ this shot

the edit I did I gave it a golden brown solid fill layer & lowered the opacity to 5% & sharpened the eyes.... & dodged the shadowed part of his face & adjusted the shadows/highlights.

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I like the edit. The selective sharpening works well here. Maybe a bit of a crop off the top?

Roach711 wrote in post #8084763
In portraits, focusing on the eyes is key. If the eyes are sharp the rest doesn't matter so much.

In set-up shots such as this you can set your focusing spot on the bridge of his nose and use f8 or so to get more depth of field. Focus/recompose works but can be iffy sometimes.

Looks like focus is on his shoulder here.

I know what you are saying about focusing on the eyes, but i seem to have problems with achieving that and i am not sure if it equipment issue or a user issue. Like i mentioned i make sure that the one selected focus point is over his eye, but as you can see it is not the sharpest point of the picture. Could it be just a bad lens issue?

Lore wrote in post #8084890
+1 I think b&w would work well w/ this shot

the edit I did I gave it a golden brown solid fill layer & lowered the opacity to 5% & sharpened the eyes.... & dodged the shadowed part of his face & adjusted the shadows/highlights.

i like this edit especially what you did to the eyes, did u just do a selective unsharp mask?

did you set the auto focus to manually select any of the points or do you have it set to focus on a specific point?

Subfightersandman wrote in post #8085056
i like this edit especially what you did to the eyes, did u just do a selective unsharp mask?

more simple than that, I used the 'Sharpen Tool' the one that looks like a tall triangle in your tool bar that is paired in with the 'blur tool & the smudge tool'

Try not to go overboard with selective sharpening is key tho, I've seen those who have 'sharpened' the eyes on their photos and it is blatantly obvious

It's a great tool however for when you miss the eyes to grab em back if there are no better shots to work with & you cannot reshoot