I Saw Some Christmas Elves!!

The other day I was taking some quick photos of my two little girls in their new "Santa's Helper" outfits. Thought I'd post a couple here. C&C welcome but please be kind, I'm a sensitive guy.

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Very cute shots, but u might want to boost the contrast of the first shot to help separate the pink from the white.

tesarver wrote in post #4493235
Very cute shots, but u might want to boost the contrast of the first shot to help separate the pink from the white.

Thank you. I had a little problem with the WB on that one too. It was under fluorescent lights using a flash. I believe I had the aperature on f/4.0 on that one and it made the color temperature balance difficult. But anyway, I did try to increase the contast on some of the others but it seemed like I lost resolution too much when I did that. I may try to play with it some more to see what I can do.

Thanks for the input.

Adorable girls! I feel the first is a wee bit flat and the second is a bit over exposed? They are cuties!

auroraskye wrote in post #4493481
Adorable girls! I feel the first is a wee bit flat and the second is a bit over exposed? They are cuties!

Thanks. Yeah, I was having a little trouble trying to make the background look white, instead of dingy gray, and not overexpose the face. I really wished I had a background light for that. A good reason to get another flash!

ChucklesKY wrote in post #4496359
Thanks. Yeah, I was having a little trouble trying to make the background look white, instead of dingy gray, and not overexpose the face. I really wished I had a background light for that. A good reason to get another flash!

To help with the WB, you can take a picture of the white background. Once you have taken the picture, you will need it to set up the custom WB on the camera. THen use the Custom WB and you should then get a correct WB.

Also, if you use the RAW format, then you can adjust the WB a bit better.

Tom

tesarver wrote in post #4496429
To help with the WB, you can take a picture of the white background. Once you have taken the picture, you will need it to set up the custom WB on the camera. THen use the Custom WB and you should then get a correct WB.

Also, if you use the RAW format, then you can adjust the WB a bit better.

Tom

I used RAW and that helped a lot! I didn't even think about using custom WB. D'oh!! Oh well, live and learn.

Chuck those girls are too cute to be yours! LOL JK. Adorable girls really.
Have you done anything in PP to them already or are their straight out of camera?
I'd increase the saturation in the first and run some USM on it...some levels probably wouldn't hurt, it seems just a bit flat but then running USM on the whole thing will give it some pop as well.
The second seem a bit...I dunno, bright, her skin is very bright and the whites of her dress as well, seems like the flash was stronger on her or too much brightness/contrast adjustment. But both are adorable, a few tweaks and you should have some very nice shots.

Nice job. I like both of them.

Two suggestions for future shots.

1. Move the subjects further from the background so no shadows fall on the background and it is rendered nicely out of focus.

2. Light the background separately. It helps with the shadow and you can blow it out to render it pure white.

TSEE wrote in post #4497070
Chuck those girls are too cute to be yours! LOL JK. Adorable girls really.
Have you done anything in PP to them already or are their straight out of camera?
I'd increase the saturation in the first and run some USM on it...some levels probably wouldn't hurt, it seems just a bit flat but then running USM on the whole thing will give it some pop as well.
The second seem a bit...I dunno, bright, her skin is very bright and the whites of her dress as well, seems like the flash was stronger on her or too much brightness/contrast adjustment. But both are adorable, a few tweaks and you should have some very nice shots.

Thanks for the comments. You're comments mean a lot to me because I know you have a very good eye and technique. I respect them. The only thing I did in PP was in CS3 Bridge play with the WB a little, increase the saturation, change the exposure and brightness as needed. I did do a very small amount of USM in CS3. I'll play with it and see what I can do.

Thanks. Thay makes sense. I really did want to use a separate BG light but didn't have one. Again, thanks for the comments.

ChucklesKY wrote in post #4497491
Thanks for the comments. You're comments mean a lot to me because I know you have a very good eye and technique. I respect them. The only thing I did in PP was in CS3 Bridge play with the WB a little, increase the saturation, change the exposure and brightness as needed. I did do a very small amount of USM in CS3. I'll play with it and see what I can do.

Thanks Chuck...I might have the eye thing down but now if I could only apply it to my own techniques when shooting too! LOL I'm working on it tho.
Well I hate commenting on photos that been attached rather than linked, you loose so much in conversion/SFW. Definitely try to move them out further from the BG if at all possible to make those wrinkles less noticable. This is the #1 reason i got my paper, I couldn't move any further out from the BG with the lens I used so paper it was so I could avoid the pesky wrinkles. But as far as what you already have I thought from those posted they just needed a little more pop, at least the first one. But they might just be fine in originals. Keep it up.

I guess I need to post these as a link huh? Is that the only way you can allow for editing?

I just want to see if this works. Sorry for resurrecting my thread. I've been trying to figure out how to link to photos instead of putting them in as attachments.

http://farm3.static.fl​ickr.com …06725766_6e0127​e073_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.fl​ickr.com …05929495_c38704​026a_o.jpg

That last one has kind of an exhausted fake smile!

ChucklesKY wrote in post #4498161
I guess I need to post these as a link huh? Is that the only way you can allow for editing?

No...but posting them as attachments often makes them look grainy and soft since you have to compress the image under 100K to get it to attach to a post. If you just link it you can have it at 800 on the longest end and the file size don't matter, I've often had images that were over 300K, and if I had attached them they would have looked so grainy and horrible it would have been no point in sharing. And those times people want to show ya how to improve it, its hard to improve something that's already grainy to begin with, those edits will most likely look even worse with work.

ChucklesKY wrote in post #4499963
I just want to see if this works. Sorry for resurrecting my thread. I've been trying to figure out how to link to photos instead of putting them in as attachments.

http://farm3.static.fl​ickr.com …06725766_6e0127​e073_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.fl​ickr.com …05929495_c38704​026a_o.jpg

That last one has kind of an exhausted fake smile!

Those work and don't look grainy either. You figured it out. BTW< if you want the image to show rather than the link put

Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE