Anything to improve this photo ?

This photo did not come out right, I vaguely remember that I stepped on a small stone & must've moved the camera while taking it. It also came out underexposed and with harsh sunlight.

Anyway, my wife likes it and wanted me to salvage it. This is the best I could do:

I would crop a little off of the left and top. I would also saturate the colors a little more. Hard to tell at this size but maybe sharpen their eyes, etc a little more to bring a little more focus in.

Back off of the clarity slider.

raw file ?
If yes I think it's possible to get a better sky.

Crop it down to a 1x1 starting to the left of the girls hand, the kids are the focus. Heal/clone out the stonework protruding from the boy's backside.

I like taking a shot like this and giving it a nostalgic feeling, perhaps a Polaroid look. But that's a matter of personal preference.

Thanks for all replies !

Yes, I probably should reduce clarity - it looks overdone now that I looked at it with a fresh eye.

What's wrong with the sky ? I may need to lower saturation a bit, but I don't seem to see anything majorly wrong with it.

Amamba wrote in post #16183071
Thanks for all replies !

What's wrong with the sky ? I may need to lower saturation a bit, but I don't seem to see anything majorly wrong with it.

looks like it has an exagerated blue tint on my screen. And also with the raw file, using a linear conversion, I think you can get more details on the clouds.

The sky is too cyan (blue+green) and that cast is fairly evident throughout the image. Here is a quick adjustment to bring the clouds toward neutral (clouds are white or light gray) and the sky into a more reasonable blue with a little cyan. I don't know if the girl's t-shirt is truly neutral,but it is now a slightly warm neutral.

kirk

I can see why your wife likes it. It looks like a wonderful moment..

I gave it a few minutes editing and came up with something like this..

using DPP white balance tool.

kirkt wrote in post #16177839
Back off of the clarity slider.

Agreed, absolutely. That's the first thing that I noticed.

Alternative: you can leave the global clarity relatively high, and selectively reduce the clarity on the skin using the brush tool.

white balance adjustment, croping, flipping horizontaly , dodge and burning.

And now the word "PEACE" on the girl's shirt is backward....

kirk

oops.

kirkt wrote in post #16191079
And now the word "PEACE" on the girl's shirt is backward....

kirk

That is the first thing I noticed too.
Note to self, never have printed words on articles of clothing or in the background. I want to be able to make artistic decision on changing orientation of the image!!!!