How can I improve this photo?

This was a difficult shooting day. The girls were moving so fast and the group was perhaps 15-20 girls moving around. This is a cropped portion of the photo... wasn't sure how else to crop it. What can I do in PP to improve on this one?

Please take a crack at PPing this please. Thank you.

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I think this is a pretty good crop. Background could have been better, but it's obvious it's an outside event so all is well. Maybe bump the colors up? Let me see what I could do to this one...

How about?

I forgot to mention... the background was a bit more in focus... I masked the background and applied a lens blur

ok, i prefer blurred backgrounds anyway. All i did was tweak the levels and boost the color a bit..

Thanks for that. I hope that when I print this out... it's like it is on the monitor

Unless the people in the background are important, I think you could blur it some more.

I couldn't really decide... would it look unrealistic if they're blurred more?... and that's her dad in the blue shirt

I wonder if this would look interesting with selective color (three girls colored)?
You might not want this effect, but just an idea.
Tom

Thanks. My preference for selective coloring is for individual objects in a photo... I personally dont' like the look of selectively colored people in shots

A crop I would try is, crop out but the girl in the middle's upper body face. See if you like it better. IMHO, the rest of the image -- back of other girls and the background is not adding anything.

Reign wrote in post #6199088
I forgot to mention... the background was a bit more in focus... I masked the background and applied a lens blur

ooh you already masked it good - darken it too, make it dull and a bit desaturated but not artificially so, just remove the emphasis from it

I certainly could be wrong here, but I get the impression that this shot was from some kind of parade or festival or something and very often those can be a bit difficult to shoot. In this case, instead of trying to get a "group" or multiple subjects in the shot, I would have tried to isolate individual subjects. Personally with this specific shot I think the best you could really do is just crop it down to the little girl in the middle. I'm not trying to be mean or rude, but I really just don't think there's that much in this shot to really work with. This might make an ok shot if it were going along with an article talking about this festival in a small local newspaper, but beyond that I'm not sure I really see any other value in this shot beyond it being a well focused snap shot.

Not trying to be rude and just my own opinions as always,
Jim

Walczak Photo wrote in post #6213549
I certainly could be wrong here, but I get the impression that this shot was from some kind of parade or festival or something and very often those can be a bit difficult to shoot. In this case, instead of trying to get a "group" or multiple subjects in the shot, I would have tried to isolate individual subjects. Personally with this specific shot I think the best you could really do is just crop it down to the little girl in the middle. I'm not trying to be mean or rude, but I really just don't think there's that much in this shot to really work with. This might make an ok shot if it were going along with an article talking about this festival in a small local newspaper, but beyond that I'm not sure I really see any other value in this shot beyond it being a well focused snap shot.

Not trying to be rude and just my own opinions as always,
Jim

No need to preface your thoughts... I understand totally. I know it's not a great shot... it was a difficult for me to figure out. This was a team of Irish stepdancers. The local Fox News was doing a special about Castle Island in South Boston (of greater Boston). The event was a few months ago. I'm just readying some pictures up for the girl's parents. I was going to send some to the school, too. This was not a hired shoot at all... I work with some of the parents.

To see the clip, go to http://media.myfoxbost​on.com …ips/2008/southb​oston.html and then click Irish Step Dancing

Also... There are a few shots of this type... this is just one. Part of this is to show that she's with other girls dancing and the location or fact that there's a crowd watching is important