Lydia-Senior Pics (Revisited)

I did these back in April, but was never happy with the results of my post processing. I decided to revisit them using Lightroom. C&C much appreciated!

Image 1:

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I like all of them except #1, looks like the focus is on the wood behind the girl and not on her face. A couple of other shots looks soft to me as well, but the compositions are very nice.

They look good, except #1 her face is out of focus

I think you've done her skin so much that she looks blurry in them. Nice colors and comp, but too soft.

I like where you are going with these, but the focus looks a little off in them.

#4 is great except the few longer pieces of grass.

#2 is, by far, the best IMO.
The wall leads your eye right into her face. It also looks like you stopped a little earlier with the skin processing in this one.
You seem to be having some trouble with softness in these. Are you focusing and recomposing. If you try that with a shallow depth of field, you can easily miss focus when close to your subject. Stand close to someone... compare the difference in distance from your eyes to their eyes and your eyes to their hand.

#4 looks great!

Really like 4 the best.

What lens was 7 shot with? Shallow DOF.

nice mix!

I think the colors look pretty good... some of the images are soft and could use selective sharpening. Most of you shots were at F/2.5 or F/2.8.... not easy to shoot at IMO... you have to have the right distance to subject to have enough DOF to keep the face sharp. Next time out... try F/4.0 and see what you think... you still get great bokeh and you will have a little more DOF to work with....

Just my $.02
Hatch

Actually... you missed focus on all but #4 and maybe #7.

#1 wood is sharp she is not
#2 almost, but you can clearly see sharp texture on the wall about six inches to a foot out in front of her
#3 same thing only further in front of her. The dark patch to the left of the frame.
#4 might be slightly front focused looking at the blades of grass... but her eyes are acceptably sharp to me. Best photo of the bunch.
#5 again... painted frame is sharp... she is not
#6 focal plane looks like her face should be in focus.. but it's soft?
#7 maybe just unsharp as opposed to being out of focus. Eyes look good... just a little edge sharpening maybe
#8 I dunno.. wood's not overly sharp but neither is she.

gonzogolf wrote in post #8872931
I think you've done her skin so much that she looks blurry in them. Nice colors and comp, but too soft.

Stickman wrote in post #8873013
I like where you are going with these, but the focus looks a little off in them.

Yep, they seem to be all front focused by a bit leaving her skin and eyes soft. Not much you can do about that in Lightroom except use the adjustment brush using "sharpness" for the eyes.

poloman wrote in post #8874213
#2 is, by far, the best IMO.
The wall leads your eye right into her face. It also looks like you stopped a little earlier with the skin processing in this one.
You seem to be having some trouble with softness in these. Are you focusing and recomposing. If you try that with a shallow depth of field, you can easily miss focus when close to your subject. Stand close to someone... compare the difference in distance from your eyes to their eyes and your eyes to their hand.

I was focusing an re-composing. I need to watch that with the shallow DOF. This is an old session, hopefully I have learned from this experience.

Thanks for all the comments.

I was shooting with the 50mm 1.4 in all of the photos. It was the first time I used it, and I am not happy with the results. I noticed as soon as I pulled them up on my screen that they were OOF... first time during any session it was consistently OOF. Oh well. Live and learn. I should of shot a lot deeper DOF.

I am going to revisited the skin softening in a few just for kicks.

It is a nice series despite the softness in some shots. You could remove the shots that are too soft and work with the rest to improve sharpness.

And I have to agree with others: #4 is very nice.