CC on Natural light portraits

I managed to convince my wife to come out to the local park so I could practice taking portraits.


I'd like totally honest and un-held-back critique and criticism for these two shots. Composition, editing, skin tones..the whole lot.

Both were shot under the shade of a tree.

IMAGE LINK: http://imgur.com/M4PjC​16

IMAGE LINK: http://imgur.com/eqOs2​b3

White balance looks a bit off, and not consistent between the two images. Also, did you "light" the face and/or model in PPing by bumping up the shadows slider? The poses look fine to me, but I probably would have taken a step or two further to the left before taking the first pic to reveal the model's pelvis. As it is, it looks like her legs are growing from the base of the tree.

mannetti21 wrote in post #16305109
White balance looks a bit off, and not consistent between the two images. Also, did you "light" the face and/or model in PPing by bumping up the shadows slider? The poses look fine to me, but I probably would have taken a step or two further to the left before taking the first pic to reveal the model's pelvis. As it is, it looks like her legs are growing from the base of the tree.

Yeah I did lighten the shadows, in LR 4. Thanks for the note on the poses.

I was trying to get that sunset/warm glow feeling in post but I cant seem to isolate her skin and face to change the white ballance without it going all weird textured like from the brush tool in Lightroom. Any suggestions as to get around that?

Thanks for the comments too!

If you really want to brush on the white balance to her face, try de-selecting the "Auto mask" feature in the brush menu. That should prevent a grainy/textured application. If you care to post up the RAW file, I can toy around with it.

mannetti21 wrote in post #16305317
If you really want to brush on the white balance to her face, try de-selecting the "Auto mask" feature in the brush menu. That should prevent a grainy/textured application. If you care to post up the RAW file, I can toy around with it.

Ill try that out!

It would be awesome if you could have a try to improve the shot, though I have no idea to publicly post a raw file?

I just created a mediafire account so I think this should work

http://www.mediafire.c​om …zckv1h5h5tv4/IM​G_9483.CR2

This is how I would adjust the white balance on my monitor. I use CS6 for my editing and I just moved the sliders til the skin tones looked close in the camera raw convertor of CS6. Once opened in photoshop, I basically selected an area around her and darkened a bit and lightened her a little. By darkening, it makes the other areas appear brighter by comparison. I also thought the bokah looked 'nervous' so I also applied a lens blur to the bg. I finished by adjusting contrast a bit and sharpening.

Just did a quick job on this one to see if I could tweak the white balance to be more accurate but at the same time make the skin tone look a bit warmer. The overall brightness is a matter of taste I suppose.

navydoc wrote in post #16305475
This is how I would adjust the white balance on my monitor. I use CS6 for my editing and I just moved the sliders til the skin tones looked close in the camera raw convertor of CS6. Once opened in photoshop, I basically selected an area around her and darkened a bit and lightened her a little. By darkening, it makes the other areas appear brighter by comparison. I also thought the bokah looked 'nervous' so I also applied a lens blur to the bg. I finished by adjusting contrast a bit and sharpening.

Thanks for the edit! Skin tone does look closer to real life. I'll take note of your workflow in cs6. I've only just started using it - and can barely adjust an exposure at this point :P

neimad19 wrote in post #16305526
Thanks for the edit! Skin tone does look closer to real life. I'll take note of your workflow in cs6. I've only just started using it - and can barely adjust an exposure at this point :P

I wish I could give you what numbers I used to adjust the white balance but I just do it by whatever looks good to me. One thing you might try as a first step in the raw convertor is "auto" exposure as a starting point. Adjust the exposure and other sliders to suit from there.

mannetti21 wrote in post #16305497
Just did a quick job on this one to see if I could tweak the white balance to be more accurate but at the same time make the skin tone look a bit warmer. The overall brightness is a matter of taste I suppose.

I agree. White balance and overall tones of an image can be very subjective so there is no one setting that is correct.

In the first photo I think you'd have gotten better results by stopping down to at least f/2.8 instead of using the 50mm f/1.8 lens wide open. Shooting at f/1.8 caused the lower part of her body to be out of fous ( especially noticeable in her left hand and foot). But more importantly, the 50mm f/1.8 only has five aperture blades and consequently it creates a very harsh, distracting background blur when used wide open.