Headshots

I took these photos of the executive board for a sorority on campus. They are head shots for a new addition of their website. All images were taken with Canon 100-400mm f5.6 ISO 100 1/250. The sun was blocked with a white umbrella; single alien bee b800 camera right through softbox with both diffusers. C&C welcome.

Edit: See post #13 for updated images (different pp)

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I feel like I have to knock them on the post processing of the skin. It looks like it was taken just a little bit too far. The skin has a smooth look to it, but the highlights and shadows are still a little blotchy and uneven. What did you do to them exactly?

Otherwise they are technically very good. Good job beating the harsh sunlight!

You probably didn't notice it, but the teeth are some white and some not white. When these pictures are put together, it becomes conspicuous.

The skin tones and processing are a mess in most of these. The teeth are over white and #6 looks like someone used a grinder on her teeth

The poses are nice. The expressions and lighting look good, now back off on the processing and your images will look much better. It's common to start this way, so don't take it too hard.
It's not necessary to over do it, to get a good image

Thanks for all of the pointers. I used portrait professional for the skin. I went back and looked at the originals v these. 5 & 6 have the most skin processing; the rest it is very minimal. The eyes and teeth are all soc.

My pp skills are not great for people. This was just my second attempt at doing so. Any tip/tricks would be greatly appreciated.

I think #4 and #5 are the best from the set.

Well presented images ruined by too much PP

You can tell when someone uses portrait professional too. Every time, I have to wonder is any of these ladies actually needed anything done in the first place?

silverstang23 wrote in post #11918745
Thanks for all of the pointers. I used portrait professional for the skin. I went back and looked at the originals v these. 5 & 6 have the most skin processing; the rest it is very minimal. The eyes and teeth are all soc.

My pp skills are not great for people. This was just my second attempt at doing so. Any tip/tricks would be greatly appreciated.

Portrait Pro isn't very good PP software, IMO. The best one is a plug-in for photoshop called Portraiture
You can use it on a separate layer and tune it with the opacity slider.
I use the healing brush to remove most of the skin blemishes, before I do anything else. Just keep it to a minimum and don't over do it. Anything makes good images look bad when overdone.
Work more on good lighting, posing and composition and you'll have much nicer images

With Portrait Pro back off the main slider to almost nothing then just readjust the skin sliders. But I think it is easy to overdo the adjustments in Portrait Pro.

I don't use Portrait Pro, but almost every time I see a photo that is overcooked with skin smoothing, the photographer says it was done with Portrait Pro.

By the way, the girl in number 6 didn't have a sand grinder taken to her teeth, she has dental fluorosis and appears to have some gum disease going on there, with very red gums. It doesn't make for an attractive smiling photo, but she is a very pretty girl with beautiful eyes, so I might have taken a few more serious ones of her. The upside to the more serious photo, or the closed mouth smile, is that her eyes retain their beautiful shape and you see more of the colored iris. you did a great job with this entire set, although I do agree that the PP is overdone is some areas.

suecassidy wrote in post #11924063
By the way, the girl in number 6 didn't have a sand grinder taken to her teeth, she has dental fluorosis and appears to have some gum disease going on there, with very red gums.

I don't know that, so I said that based on what I see

I went back a red-edited all of them. No portrait pro. Let me know what you think of these:

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Wow - This is really interesting to me, the girls are just beautiful - your capture - posing - exposure - focus - lighting - DOF is so good - now leaving that to try and judge the difference - I magnified the photo's - and yes you can see the PP in the first group - and the girls to me in the second group as just as and maybe even more lovely -however - my question is which do they like? Are they looking for that more "glamor look" so to speak?

silverstang23 wrote in post #11989529
I went back a red-edited all of them. No portrait pro. Let me know what you think of these:

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you have to lower the settings in the mouth section. lower the sharpness!