" You have a high key background, but the lighting on the subjects is a bit on the contrasty side...reduce the ratio of highlight area vs. fill. And bring up the overall brightness levels a bit so the hightlight side is not so dark as it is now. "
Does that mean to raise the light on the subjects so that they more match the background?
Yes. High key means that most of the tones in the scene are brighter than mid-tone...with only few exceptions to that.
" Don't move the lights closer, though. That simply makes the contrast ratio higher! "
This means; if I move the main light closer it will make a softer light, creating more contrast, where a light source farther away will be smaller (more harsh) and create less contrast? That seems backwards in my mind.
Shouldn't a softer light be less contrasty?
Yes closer means softer light, and that helps with shadow edge transitions. But my point of moving light farther not closer is that the falloff across the scene is greater when the light is close! Inverse Square law results in a greater degree of light intensity decrease for a given distance (the example I gave earlier). So if your light was at subject right, over to subject left would be more noticeable darker due solely to falloff of intensity (and for the high key shot we don't want that so much!)
In order to soften shadow edge transitions and keep falloff to lesser levels, it would be necessary to have larger softbox farther away, than what you are currently using.
