family portrait critique

Love to get critique on these, both compositionally, lighting, and in PP

Want to improve to to lead to paid shoots. The family were very happy with them, and they like the PP (they were watching me do it). Nonetheless, I am not totally satisfied with the warmer individual shots. What would you do to get the colour right?

These are a couple, more can be found here

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Compositionally, they look fine. Maybe try a variety of compositions, IE, frame wider to get more of the torso in the shot.

For the individual shots, lighting wise, it's okay. I'd do a local adjustment, brightening up their faces. It seems a bit dark on the 2nd photo. For both the 1st and 2nd photos, it looks like you used an umbrella or similar. Try moving it in closer for both shots, especially for the 2nd where your flash almost seems to add little to no light to the subject.

PP wise, you're using Lightroom right? Drop the temperature on the slider but boost contrast via the Tone Curve. Upping the lights a fair amount and dropping the darks slightly will also have an effect on color that I particularly like. As I mentioned above, I'd brighten up their faces a bit.

The group shots great. I'd level it, it looks like you're falling to the camera left.

Lighting wise the last photo is by far the best, the first three photos the subjects faces are all hidden in shadow, the light only serves to brighten the backgrounds making the images look a little dull.

^ ^ What they said. Plus, the last one might have been taken from slightly higher or more to the right so that he didn't have a pole growing out of his head? ; )

The first three photos were backlit and consequently needed some fill light from either a flash or a reflector. This is particularly evident in the first and second photos where the shadows cast by the bridge of the nose and the eyesocket cause the left eye to appear darker than the right.

The final photo is side lit with what appears to be softer wraparound light coming from the right so the faces are more evenly lit. I would clone out the tree behind the man's head and also fix the teeth discoloration in the first two photos. And if you have outtakes with the baby looking at the camera I'd look into swapping her head so she's looking in the same direction as the others.

I agree with PixelMagic regarding the backlit photos. A fill flash or reflector would have helped. I think exposure of the faces should be at least as bright as the background or brighter. On my monitor, the white balance could be adjusted a little too.

As an example, here's a quick edit on one of your images where I adjusted the w/b, darkened the bg and lightened her face. Of course, it's better to do this when the photo is taken whenever possible.

Thanks everyone
I did use an umbrella for the shots, but obviously not close enough, nor bright enough.
Great advice