Please help a newbie

Hi everyone. i'm soooo excited i just found this site a few days ago and have been browsing through the threads and admiring all the amazing pictures. i am new to photography and love it and want to get better at it. i would love to start a business taking picutres. i've taken baby pics for my friends and a couple family pics but that is it.

so i need help!!!! i took a family picture it was a partly cloudy day which was perfect for our location but once the whole family got settled the sun peaked out and stayed there.

i've tried fooling around with exposure and stuff but have no idea what i'm doing. any suggestions or critiques would be greatly appreciated. they are blowing htis up for their parents anniversary present. i'll post the original and my attempt at fixing it.

ok i can't seem to upload the one i tried to fix. so heres the original.
hopefully it loads up ok. i think the file size is tooo small
but here we go...

It looks to me to be out of focus a little. The trees in the background look muddy. What camera did you shoot this with?

Its slightly soft, but I'll bet a little bit of sharpening would help that along. As far as the exposure, are you familiar with layer masking? Maybe that would help a bit? I'm not super great at photoshop yet, but hopefully one of the masters can help you.

ok this is not the right picture i meant to upload. here is the one i wanted it's almost teh same but i think a tad clearer. any help would be appreciated. i'm not used to doing group shots. i prefer little kids and babies....and i am far from mastering that.

oh and hurley it's a canon 400D. it does look better on my computer i think i am not uploading them properly they seem to be losing quality. by shrinking them down so much. i'll have to research how to upload on this site

One tends to get some comprseeion on their photos when loading to a forum, I use Photobucket, and it does lose a bit of its clarity

BTW, if you wanted folks to perhaps show you what they would do, you can enable the Image Editing in your user profile.

ok thanks i just enabled it!!

I think it's a nice portrait considering the direct sun. Welcome to the forum!

I agree with poppieguy!

Honestly there are a lot of black holes for eyes and squinty eyes (both caused from the bright sun peeking out). Since there are so many people in the image it may be best to try to reshoot. I would place them in the shade, at the edge (not too close to the edge but near it) so the available light is in the eyes.

I think even if you had really good PS CS skills you would spend a lot time on this image and not a great result.

You did a great job. It's so hard to shoot large groups. It's like shooting 40 portraits all at once.

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. Here is the final copy that they ended up developing. i did suggest a re-shoot but they said no. it's for their parents anniversary and its in a couple days. this was sort of a last minute idea they had. they were happy with what they got. it was free for them afterall. beggars can't be choosers..lol

Good job on the processing, and I like the Psalm quote too!

It will be cherished

I am sure their parents will be happy with it. Welcome to the forums. There is a ton of info here and some of the best to learn from.