CC on Portrait

Went with some very good friends this past weekend to Yosemite; this is shot of their daughter at lower falls. We were in shade she was in partial shade with harsh light on her right; I choose f/4 rather then 2.8 because I was concerned that the background would blow out completely, and in doing so needed to push the iso up to 1600. Pixel peeping shows the added noise but overall her mom is very happy with the shot; yes, that should be good enough, but I need to learn not only to make others happy, but also have confidence that I made the right decisions.

Post I sharpened her eyes, added a layer to soften her pores and remove the acne that most of not all teens are blessed/cursed with, while trying not to change her freckles and moles.

Thanks for your input and commentary in advance.

Not bad, but looks like the left eye (the one on the right ) is not as in focus as the other. Don't really care about the noise. Exposure looks good. Looks like you missed a pimple or blemish at the neck line of the shirt that I would remove. I don't care for the serious expression.

I can see why her mom is happy with it! I like the serious expression and the fixed stare on something... although others will likely prefer the look into the lens thing... There seems to be a blue tinge to her hair though? Or is it my eyes? I'n not sure about the harsh light in her right eye and the small blown area on the end of her nose, but both easily fixed in pp. I'm being super-critical here though... a nice shot!

Numenorean wrote in post #13375904
Not bad, but looks like the left eye (the one on the right ) is not as in focus as the other. Don't really care about the noise. Exposure looks good. Looks like you missed a pimple or blemish at the neck line of the shirt that I would remove. I don't care for the serious expression.

+1 as well as the highlight in her right eye being to bright.

Very pretty girl. I think I would correct the white balance a bit which is just a personal taste, soften her skin a bit more to reduce the harshness and as mentioned, remove the blemish on her chest.

I also felt that her face is a bit dark compared to the background so I would lighten her face and maybe darken the background using an adjustment layer.

I hope you don't mind but here is an edit with the above adjustments. You may also think her skin is now too smooth but again, I think that's a matter of personal taste.

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The white balance seems a bit cool to me as well. The top of her shoulder and neck are a bit hot, you can darken and blend those areas a bit it might help focus more attention on her face.

If you don't mind me saying (as a complete amateur) the above changes made a good photo into an excellent one. Can I ask what software did you use to make the changes?

Thanks for the compliment. I use Photoshop CS5 for my edits. I have it set up to open jpgs in it's RAW editor first. I use that to adjust the white balance. All other changes were done in Photoshop itself.

Thank you everyone for your comments and suggestions; I do find the edit over the top on the skin smoothing, and as you say that is a matter of opinion, the other tweaking did make a difference however that I do love.

Thanks again.

In that edit I like the color better, but the skin processing and especially the processing done to the eyes is very much over the top for me. Here's a quick edit of something I like - a bit warmer.

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Interestingly, I did no extra processing of her eyes at all.

Less is more I think. Just a light touch of editing

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