Head shots

Think this is the third time I have done portraits. Feel free to let me know how I can improve next time. Had 2 lights, 430ex. then used sunlight to light the back drop.

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I'm no expert but i find in the second shot the 'fog' on the shirt draws my attention too much.

The first one seems a little soft but that might be the resizing. I think the first could use a little bit of retouching, brighten the eyes and maybe a slight levels adjustment to get the contrast up a bit. I dont like the post processing on the second

Is it me or is there a yellow green light on these?

Just missed the eyes on the first one, but I like the naturalness of it.

gonzogolf wrote in post #8113109
The first one seems a little soft but that might be the resizing. I think the first could use a little bit of retouching, brighten the eyes and maybe a slight levels adjustment to get the contrast up a bit. I dont like the post processing on the second

lol I did retouch the eyes and teeth, maybe I'll give it a bit more, feel like in most my pictures I over process so I wanted to go easy this time around.

As far as the second one goes the white vignette wasn't done in post, I just got a set of 28 filters so I was playing with a few, that one was a "sand" filter. Didn't like it myself at first but then it kind of grew on me. Really gave the picture that cheesy star shots look.

Yea Flo I was wondering the same thing myself, was wondering if maybe it had to with him being a surfer and if the sun did that to his hair or if it was just me poorly adjusting the picture. Another hard thing to work with was since he is a surfer and he had gone out that mourning he was really sunburned.

Thanks for the input guys, quick question though, I havn't used custom white balance for this shoot (as you can probably tell) Should I be doing this? Will I notice a difference?

Stutterbug wrote in post #8113863
Yea Flo I was wondering the same thing myself, was wondering if maybe it had to with him being a surfer and if the sun did that to his hair or if it was just me poorly adjusting the picture.

No, it's not just his hair. There is a slight greenish tinge to his skin, too. Look at the area of neck beneath his ear, for example. You weren't using any fluorescent lights?

If you redo the eyes and teeth, try selecting the whites, then use the hue saturation control, select yellow then desaturate a little.

Sisyphus wrote in post #8114109
No, it's not just his hair. There is a slight greenish tinge to his skin, too. Look at the area of neck beneath his ear, for example. You weren't using any fluorescent lights?

was using 2 fluorescent lights.

Stutterbug wrote in post #8114281
was using 2 fluorescent lights.

Yeah, I asked because flourescent lights can sometimes give a green cast, as you may know -- they tend to be deficient at the red end of the spectrum. This can probably be corrected in PP without too much trouble (hopefully).

I guess no one noticed he has his head tipped to the feminine shoulder, making him look femimine. In my 27 years as a working pro I have never photographed a male that wanted to look femimine and I have photographed several "girley men" and even they didn't want to look feminine.

Benji

Benji wrote in post #8114496
I guess no one noticed he has his head tipped to the feminine shoulder, making him look femimine. In my 27 years as a working pro I have never photographed a male that wanted to look femimine and I have photographed several "girley men" and even they didn't want to look feminine.

Benji

Well that's why I post here because I didn't know there was a difference.

Thanks for the heads up on the lighting also Sis, what should I do to correct that? Gels?

Avoid using fluorescent lights if you can. I think I saw some of the cfl's recently that claimed to be more of a full spectrum light, color balanced to simulate the color of light from tungsten bulbs. Not sure if they would help though. Having just reread your note up top. Balancing flashes to fluorescent lights is tough because the over the course of their life the tubes in the fluorescent lights shift colors.