Input wanted

What is your input on this image?

I would crop it a bit tighter. And maybe warm up the background just a bit but overall its a very nice image.

At first glance I liked it quite a bit, but once I looked at it for a few seconds longer, it looks like the family was photoshopped onto the background. I'm guessing maybe you made a layer and blurred the background, but it looks a little too obvious for me. I do like the background itself and the concept you were going for though. All that said, it's just my opinion.

They look pretty good, but the grass under their legs looks way too sharp.

They also have a blurry halo around them. Try and keep the grass sharp along the focal plane too. I think you're really close here, just need a little more work.

Good initial look but then a few seconds later I notice "Ghosting" around them. What happened?

I didn't have my settings right in camera so my background was not blurry. I tried to do that after the fact!

mdaddyrabbit wrote in post #17224898
I didn't have my settings right in camera so my background was not blurry. I tried to do that after the fact!

You can tell on the grass between the legs.

Next time stand farther away and use a longer focal length. You'll get more background blur with the same f-stop. The longer focal length will be better for your subjects as well as you have less distortion. It's not bad here but I would have filled the frame a bit more with the family and then you might notice more.

A more natural blur is possible by creating a separate layer of the background (mask out the people), blur it, then fill its layer mask with a graduated filter from bottom to top black to white. Then the blur will become progressively increased from the start to the top of the filter range.

mdaddyrabbit wrote in post #17224898
I didn't have my settings right in camera so my background was not blurry. I tried to do that after the fact!

Well that's exactly what it looks like. Try Qbx method for adding a more natural blur.

Potentially a nice pic except that bright sky shape top centre distracts. Its always tricky trying to fake background blur. If you can be bothered, select the group and some of the foreground and copy to another layer. Then dup the background and use lens blur, but not too heavy. Then use a grad layer mask to blend the foreground with the new blurred background. Then put the group on top and 'slightly' transform to enlarge to cover the spread of the blur from the background. Either that, or cut them out, then use content aware to fill the void. Do it properly in camera next time. Saves a massive amount of pfaffing around ....

This shallow DOF is a good look to go for, but it is near impossible to recreate properly in PP, I know I've tried! Do you have a fast (f/2.8 or less) lens? It takes more effort to learn to use, but the results are often gorgeous.

I shot this with a Canon 60D and a Sigma 17-70mm 2.8 IS

The first spot I noticed was between the man's shoulder and the woman's hair. Then I noticed the same thing in between all of their legs. What does the original look like?

mdaddyrabbit wrote in post #17226190
I shot this with a Canon 60D and a Sigma 17-70mm 2.8 IS

At 23mm f4.5 you are not going to get a very shallow DOF. I wonder if you might do well to get a prime lens e.g. 50mm f/1.8. If you are really keen get a Samyang 85mm manual lens - it is a lot harder to use, but, with practice, you can get great portraits with nice bokeh.