Critique Please

Hi all, still very new to this and was chasing my kids around the field one afternoon. My older son wouldn't give my younger one the soccer ball so he was chasing him around screaming and crying. Finally got ahold of the ball for a brief time so I dropped to the ground to snap this pic and thought I would work on making this something to include in our annual photobook or even print out.

Would love to get your thoughts on the post processing/cropping, etc. I made changes to virtually everything in lightroom that my limited skill is aware of. The one that most dramatically changed things other than my moving sliders around was choosing the Adobe Landscape profile. Wondering if this has made my boy look a little too...processed.

First image is obviously the worked on one, second is just exported from lightroom as shot. Please be brutally honest with your feedback, just here to learn, Thanks!

The settings I had where just my attempt to get the buggers in focus while they ran around.

Just quickly, I like the framing of your edited version. I think you should consider pulling down the highlight slider as his skin seems to be a bit washed out especially in the upper arms. Also maybe pull up the shadows and use the iris enhance brush to put a bit more sparkle into his eyes.

Also maybe go a bit easy on the clarity/vibrance sliders. I'm looking at it on my phone, so it might just be on my end, but the image looks a bit overcooked.

I tend to agree with Sam. I like the crop in #1 & the skin tones in the original image.
Rene's thread: Have you calibrated your monitor?

Strangely enough, I'm not sure which image is which. I have found that sometimes my browser (Firefox) displays the images in the inverted order than that perceived by the poster. The "first" image to me was the tighter crop with the horizon straightened and, to my eye, over-saturated to the point of not being flattering to the subject. The "second" was the more muted one with the tilted horizon. With that out of the way, I'm pleased that you straightened the horizon in the first. However, the punched up saturation makes the skin look mottled. I have often found that desaturating a portrait, making it softer, is a more flattering presentation. The second (OOC?), however, does look a little dull. Here's my take: I nudged up the saturation and contrast. I do understand that my preferences often differ from that of others.

Thank you all so far the feedback. I think the culprit here is the Adobe landscape profile, as most of the sliders for saturation and luminance are actually on the negative side. I guess i was trying to reduce the vibrance and failing.

The highlights are already -100 but I recall seeing a trick to make this scale greater, will have to figure that's out, or maybe when I change the profile it won't be as bad.

I believe initially I was trying to make the sky/clouds look great but sacrificed the rest of the shot...

Joedlh, yours is closer to what I more recently was thinking it should look like, but maybe I can use a brush to adjust the sky. Or do you guys think it's better flat?

I'm on my phone now, but I believe the changes are quite drastic when I choose a different profile. Not sure on sub-forum rules here but am I able to post an adjusted version to this thread once I'm able to?

Thanks again!

You can lower the luminance on the blue to bring the color out in the sky. Since there is no blue anywhere else in the photo, you should be able to play around with it to see if you can get a blue sky without messing anything else up.

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The green grass is too saturated for my tastes. . It is actually the richest, most saturated area of color in the image. . Do you really want all of the visual emphasis to be on the turf? . Is the turf what this image is all about, or is the image about your son? . I would select the green color channel and reduce the saturation ..... significantly.

Also, I would not over do the blue sky. . To my tastes, a pale grey sky, or very pale blue sky, is preferable to a bold blue sky. . Not sure why so many people seem to prefer bold blue skies - they usually just don't look right. . Very pale, washed out pastel tones are better for skies than bold rich blues.

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Would this be a step in the right direction given all the great feedback? I changed the profile to Adobe Color which is the normal default, and then lowered overall vibrance and saturation, and went a bit further with the green. I tried my best to lower highlights further on his arms with a brush but not sure it did anything. Also, made some small changes to the previous work I did on the eyes and added some more dehaze and some more contrast.

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elpietro wrote in post #18911969
... lowered overall vibrance and saturation, and went a bit further with the green.

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The grass looks SO MUCH better!

It no longer competes with your son for attention, which is the most important thing. . Great job "uncooking" the turf!


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