First Maternity Pictures

Well here is the story. The pictures below are of my Little Sis and her husband. I didnt have much to work with since I dont have strobes,backdrops,Ligh​ts or anything. I took these pictures at my Mom and Dads in front of there fire place. I wanted to build a fire to make them more interesting but the stack needed to be cleaned. So here we go @C (INVALID EMAIL) please. Thanks

#1

There's a lot of feelings and emotion going on in #4. Great picture.
Ideal for B & W - excellent range of tonalities. Great composition.
My only complaint is the lighting - as usual with flash, too flat.
Congratulations!

I just had a boy so I'm gonna comment on a few of these pics. I usually leave that to more experienced people but here goes:

1. Love the concept, and i think the selective color works well here (though many will say it is overdone) but your BiL doesn't really add to the picture, I think you need to work on a different pose for him, or maybe just get his hand and the marker.

2. I like this shot and the pose, but I think you would be better off going outside or against a plain wall. The background seems a little distracting. Also looks a little out of focus.

3. I really like this one! Again, I enjoy the selective color but many will say it's overdone. I think it would be even nicer if there was no clothing visible. I understand the whole sister thing, but just sayin'.

4. Nice pose, but I'm not sure him being shirtless really adds anything. Again I find the background a bit distracting

5. Love the belly+bow. I think you are on to something here, just find a nicer background. Also, less clothes would be nicer IMO.

Also, all these could benefit from some skin smoothing, blemish cloning, etc.

thank you guys. Im just starting to learn cs3 for photo editing. Skin smoothing is what im learning right now

Tatortech wrote in post #8831052
thank you guys. Im just starting to learn cs3 for photo editing. Skin smoothing is what im learning right now

I just started learning all that stuff myself. I use lightroom which i find great! It have a smoothing brush for skin and a simplified clone tool that works quite well. I have played with PS but I find it a lot less intuitive. Granted I haven't really had a need to figure it out.

I'm not sure I like the writing on the stomach.

All of the B&W photos, to me, look too flat and without enough contrast. I realize you did not have proper lighting so it would be tough.

Poses are pretty good except not so sure on #5. The blocks are kinda cool though.

I'm assuming the writing in picture one was added with Photoshop? Try this tutorial for making the writing look as though it is actually on the skin.

(Hope it's not bad to put links to other sites here)
http://www.planetphoto​shop.com/painless-tattoos.html

You may have already done this but the opacity might be what's throwing it off in my perception.

Okay, had some spare time so I messed around with that first one a bit. Not sure my writing turned out any better than yours but went with some of the photoshop suggestions of others and cropped and redrew on it a bit.

Thanks guys, Please keep the C@C comming