Family at the beach

Here goes my 2nd post ever on the forums (My first one was today under the sports section) I am completely new to PP and hooked on the bleach bypass filters/presets... Here are some pics from a family session with my wife and daughters (I'm the monkey wearing glasses in the second shot) All critiques and comments are greatly welcomed as I would like to make improvements!

Welcome! You have a very beautiful family. I really like the clothing choices. These seem a bit under-exposed, but maybe it's the choice of PP. Keep shooting, I'd love to see more.

~Megan

Nice shots I like them.

I like it ! ~~~ ^_^

Nice pics...what kind of set up did you use?

Doesn't anyone see thats it's over processed? too contrasty -- if it was film, I'd say it was underexposed and over developed.

a pet peeve of mine is when people duck down in a photo to "fit in" or to get their heads closer to the other heads. I understand the INTENT, I just think it looks weird to me. In this particular situation, you are shooting your own portraits and probably never even thought about it, you just knew you didn't want to cut off the top of your head, and your wife followed your lead. Next time, I would chose a pose that naturally put your heads closer together if that was the look you were going for. OR, I'd shoot the adults fully upright, check the result and move the camera/tripod back if my head were cut off. It just isn't natural to have your butts stuck out like that. Having said that, you have a beautiful family and when your little girls are all grown up, you will be glad that you made the effort to photograph you all together!

The clothing for the pictures was picked by my wife, she seems to be spot on for these type of things. As far as the actual photographs I am a complete noob trying to improve. Thanks for the tips on the poses and it is something that I'll definitely keep in mind for a future session with my girls.
On the over processed comment, would you mind giving me some pointers on how to not to over do it. I used Lightroom 3 which I am completely new to....
Thank you everyone for your kind comments!

Here are a couple of more from that same day, processed a bit lighter (please give me feedback on how to do better PP as I am a complete noob)

A.Salinas86 wrote in post #12220036
Nice pics...what kind of set up did you use?

These were taken with my T2i and the EF-S10-22mm lens.... Should have used a flash perhaps too but I am still a bit new to photography.

suecassidy wrote in post #12220192
a pet peeve of mine is when people duck down in a photo to "fit in" or to get their heads closer to the other heads. I understand the INTENT, I just think it looks weird to me. In this particular situation, you are shooting your own portraits and probably never even thought about it, you just knew you didn't want to cut off the top of your head, and your wife followed your lead. Next time, I would chose a pose that naturally put your heads closer together if that was the look you were going for. OR, I'd shoot the adults fully upright, check the result and move the camera/tripod back if my head were cut off. It just isn't natural to have your butts stuck out like that. Having said that, you have a beautiful family and when your little girls are all grown up, you will be glad that you made the effort to photograph you all together!

Sue, thank you very much for your input..... Were you able to distinguish the Huntington Beach pier in the background? (I noticed HB is listed on your profile)

The last one is better. In Lightroom, I think the best instruction I can give is to go from top to bottom in the Develop palette. Start with exposure fix and work your way down.

Most blacks should have some detail, like hair. Also whites, except specular highlights. In Photoshop levels, for commercial print work, in Levels (histogram work), I always defined my cmyk black point as 0,0,0,95% black; white point as 5%,0,0,0. Then I'd pick the area in the image that I wanted black WITH detail, and then using the white picker to choose the area I wanted white with detail. That, and 20 years of darkroom work, taught me how an image should look. In your first image with the guy leaning dow, that black point might be some in the black mess of the womans and kids hair -- now a blob (a little trial and re-try works to find it), and the white point might be the littlest girls smooth area of her dress.

I just noticed a weird edge to the guys shirt at the sky. You got some mask going on here?

Unless you wanted a blind "OOH OOH, what great photos" and "how did you get these amazing images?

Like others have said...the blacks seem really heavy in these images. Either they were underexposed in the camera, or had too much contrast added during PP.

Presets and filters are great once you know how to edit. If you don't understand what the presets are doing or how to manipulate them to get the end result you want...they often times will do more harm than good. No preset works perfectly for every image you take, you have to know how to tweak them to get the result you want.

Thank you for the honest feedback, it is much appreciated!
Can you guys point me to some good online tutorials for Lightroom?

mcluckie wrote in post #12220139
Doesn't anyone see thats it's over processed? too contrasty -- if it was film, I'd say it was underexposed and over developed.

Agree. Too much contrast added.. especially at the shadow end. Their hair and eyes are very dark. My guess would be a non-calibrated computer screen which when developing photos is like shooting in the dark or developing "blind". But you can monitor the histogram, if you know what that is, to make sure you don't over do contrast.