My Daughter Kay

Not sure about the composition on this, I did a little work on the skin tones but it's basically as it came out of the camera, no cropping (reduced to post on here though). Not sure about the brightness though, it looks nice on the 2 HP monitors but darker on the Samsung, can anyone recommend a calibrator that does multiple monitors but doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

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Its fantastic. I do wish the ear was not cut off. other than that, I like it a lot.

Yeah! me too; but as I said it's not a crop so can't really do much about it, looked OK through the view finder; I think

I feel like something is missing.... its great comp. i would lighten it up, increase sat. and sharpen a tad... but thats just me.

Claire: It was the softness of this shot that appealed to me, if it looks a little dark then the Samsung must be the closest to the truth. Must calibrate !

It looks a fraction dark Mick, but not by much (and my monitor is calibrated). I like the softness in the image as well, doesn't detract from the shot, but adds to it. The slight darkness adds a bit of mood to the shot imho, almost gives it a wuthering heights feel. My only criticism is I suspect that there's a slight colour cast, and cutting off the ear. Pretty daughter, lovely green eyes, no doubt she'll have the boys chasing her in a few years, good luck!

Dave

edit: I had a quick play with this image Mick, if you're interested in the results, drop me a PM with your email addy and I'll email it to you. Nothing huge in terms of changes, just a slight colour cast fix, some minor changes to hue/saturation, and played with contrast a tiny amount.

Stick the image on here Dave then I can just flick up and down the screen to compare the two images. Thanks

that's a gr8 composition.
you can allow editing and members here including me can try something with...

Well to be honest Amir I'm happy with shot except it needs lightening up a little, I used to have image editing enabled but some of the attempts that people made were abominable so I knocked it off. I've seen Dave's editing and it's usually quite good so I don't mind him having a go but my general rule is just look and make any comments you think will be helpful but leave the image as is. Thanks for looking.

u have the whole right to keep your pictures the way you like them
still i didn't change my mind it is a good picture from every way as i like it

The composition is good. The open mouth is not really at her advantage, but its minor a problem.
The problem is a lack of volume, brightness, and skin tone.
lack of volume come from the BG which is the same color and tone as thez skin. I would desaturate the BG (-25%) and darken it (lightness -25%)
More volume is in the Green channel. create a new layer. image/apply image select the green channel. This creates a copy of the green channe in a new layer. set blend mode to luminosity.

next is the skin tones. it is too yellow. What ever the calibration of your monitor, you can check by the numbers. et the infopalette to CMYK. Yellow must be between 100% and 125% of Magenta. Removing yellow is adding blue because blue kills yellow. To add blue, I use a channel mixer layer and set Blue = 75% blue + 25% green.

because green is higher than blue in skin tones, this formula pops the blue. because the total is still 100%, any neutral pixel will remain neutral.

Last step is lightness. A level is fine for that.

Yes you're right; I don't have Image Editing enabled and my last post explains why! I'm not too keen on your edit as it makes it look too harsh and grainy; almost canvas like on my monitor, good if that were the effect I was going for; but it wasn't. Thanks for looking.

Mick Emmett wrote in post #4785914
Yes you're right; I don't have Image Editing enabled and my last post explains why! I'm not too keen on your edit as it makes it look too harsh and grainy; almost canvas like on my monitor, good if that were the effect I was going for; but it wasn't. Thanks for looking.

What you call grain is skin blotchiness. I did not address this issue because it is the latest one in my workflow, and my first thought about your image was about skin tones, contrast, light and volume. I'm sorry I have misunderstood your original question. (in fact I didn't read much of the thread. I understand now that I should. i'm sorry about that. I just saw a lovely portrait, with a neat idea of how to make it pop, and I ran into the edits )

Blotchiness is not hard to fix with blur and masking. Here is the best tutorial I've found so far to cover this issue. I've tried it on your image. It works wonder.

Fantastic eyes. I like the shot, with the exception of the missing ear tip.

OL9245 wrote in post #4785967
What you call grain is skin blotchiness.

No mate, what I call grainy, is grain. It runs through the entire shot in your edit, including the background. Here's one I give you my blessing to have a go at if you want, see what you can do with her blown out forehead and the shadow to the side of her nose and tongue. It's only a fun shot and I won't be using it as she understandably chose some of the other shots I took of her for publication.

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