Washed Out Portrait

I have been playing with this photo in Lightroom and it ends up being washed out or too dark. I can't seem to find a happy medium. Any thoughts would be appreciated. And if I'm just being crazy, you can tell me that, too.

Terri

Terri,

The exposure looks fine to me on my [Uncalibrated] monitor. My interpretations of color and exposure are usually about the same as people who report their findings from calibrated monitors. The histogram looks good to me. It is slightly to the right of center. That's what I aim to achieve.

My concern on this shot would be that the focus appears to be about 2 inches in front of little boy blue's eyes. The ribbing on his left shirt sleeve seems to be the sharpest point on the image. Did your focus/recompose? Did you let the camera select the focus point? Did you manually select the closest focal point and place it on his nearest eye? The EXIF data is stripped off for the camera and setting information.

You got right down at his level which almost always makes a better baby composition. Good choice on your vantage point.

Welcome to POTN and thanks for sharing your work with us!

Thank you for the feedback. Yes, unfortunately, the camera was set on auto-focus. And this was a one-shot deal before he started bawling. I will keep trying. Thank you, again!

trose710 wrote in post #16600104
Thank you for the feedback. Yes, unfortunately, the camera was set on auto-focus. And this was a one-shot deal before he started bawling. I will keep trying. Thank you, again!

Just becase it was on Auto focus - you can still choose the focus point...

tmoore323 wrote in post #16600374
Just becase it was on Auto focus - you can still choose the focus point...

I think she meant it was set for the camera to select the focus point automatically.

mafoo wrote in post #16601009
I think she meant it was set for the camera to select the focus point automatically.

IMO, that's not a good idea, especially for portraits. And in future, pay more attention to the background, & watch the hands so it doesn't look like a selfie? ; )

trose, if you turn on image editing in your control panel, I'll give you my POV with some photoshop screen grabs.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #16601640
IMO, that's not a good idea, especially for portraits.

My point exactly

PhotosGuy wrote in post #16601640
IMO, that's not a good idea, especially for portraits.

Yep, agree 100%. Whoever set that to auto focus points for that photo is a dumbass.

wait, that was me

Terri is my wife. She has a far better eye then I do, but is new with the equipment. I usually set the camera to center focus point on the 5D2, but just didn't in this case. My fault.

The hands thing, that's all her

hes gone wrote in post #16601854
=he's gone;16601854]trose, if you turn on image editing in your control panel, I'll give you my POV with some photoshop screen grabs.

Okay - I think I changed the settings so you can do this.

One thing I do when I want to boost mids while maintaining color is to lift the tone curve and pull in the black point. Basically, create a control point at the lower left grid point on the curve (starting with a linear curve) and lift it slightly, then take the point at the bottom of the curve (black point) and slide it in a bit. This will cause the middle of the curve to lift a bit more too so be mindful. It will give more saturation to colors, similar to a high contrast curve, while maintaining the bright, open midtones.

If you think the face is a bit bright try bringing down the highlights in LR.

Cute baby.

mafoo wrote in post #16602572
[Snip]

Terri is my wife. She has a far better eye then I do, but is new with the equipment. I usually set the camera to center focus point on the 5D2, but just didn't in this case. My fault.

The hands thing, that's all her

Nothing like a little family photography rivalry going there...

the exposure on your image is fine, no blown highlights or shadows.

other than the hand being cropped the biggest issue is mixed lighting. You can see that the light on top of his head is orange, while all the other light is blue (from a window, I'm sure). I think that without trying to fix the color casts first, the more adjustments you make might have made it worse.

if you're not familiar with the terms, look up color value and hue and learn the difference. Fix the hues first, as best you can, then worry about the values.

So to try to fix the mixed lighting (hue) I picked a point on your son's head where the incandescent light is strongest, but without his flowing locks getting in the way. Yes, I'm a little jealous of his hair. The first attachment shows the Hue/Saturation dialog in Photoshop. The color in that area looks orange but registered red. Once you have chosen the area you want to correct, move your cursor out there and sample the color, when you click, the slider at the bottom of the Hue/Sat box will move to that specific area. I then made the numerical adjustments seen.

Then I went for a more global correction with the curves dialog. Moving the black line (RGB) into an "S" shape increases contrast. You can also see in the same screen capture that I moved the blues down a bit.

Not pictured is another adjustment to the over all saturation with the same Hue/Sat tool. I think it was -10. IMO infants don't have much color in their skin and putting it in there can make it look unnatural.

His arms might have gone from sunburned to a little jaundice :P but I think it works. fighting an odd cast between blue/cyan vs red/magenta is tough because they are opposite on the color wheel. I'm guessing mine is closer to the color of the carpet.

Obviously your best bet is to eliminate the cast to begin with.

Looking at them together, I might have gone with a little more contrast, with darker blacks but not any brighter.

before: