Jennifer -- C&C welcome

I met this young aspiring model on a car forum and we agreed on doing a small shoot around the downtown area. The reason for the shoot: get her more time in front of a camera, and more time behind the camera for me. There's a very good chance I'll be working with her again, so C&C are welcome.

I learned a lot and already have a few things in mind to improve upon on future shoots, but I would love to hear other people's comments.

1.

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The images are really nice, good exposure and focus, and good eyes in every shot. I think I just want to see more variety in the composure and less repetition with the 3/4(ish) length shot.

thank you sir.

i agree i would also like more variety but i felt the outfit didn't really work, so i cropped accordingly.

are there any that stand out over the others? I would like to start a MM account to get a few other models lined up

KEEPIN MY Thought to my self... ok maybe not... amazingly beautiful... and good series

nice shots.. easy on the teeth pp

thanks for the comments.

i actually didn't touch the teeth in PP. what you see is how they are.

she has great skin as well, but I do feel like I went a little overboard with the processing on that part. (thoughts?) there is still a lot of detail in her skin in the high-res images, though...it is not just blurred.

a little much on the skin imo. I think the texture works in #3 but not 5. #8 is your best.

A bit much skin smoothening/retouching for me as well. #2 she looks like a plastic doll. Great lighting.

All really great shots. #3 and #5 are my favourites

dinko wrote in post #9934370
she has great skin as well, but I do feel like I went a little overboard with the processing on that part. (thoughts?) there is still a lot of detail in her skin in the high-res images, though...it is not just blurred.

Yup, went too far with the skin. You did however, do a nice job with her session outside of that.

Here is my step-by-step for image processing (in most cases)...

- Make all of your skin fixes first (patching, healing, cloning, etc)
- In the skin softening filter (I use Nik Skin Softener), select an area of the skin, don't just let the filter pick the default for you
- Adjust the various sliders to best suit your image
- Apply your softening filter onto a new layer
- Paint in the skin with a layer mask (big mistake many make by applying it to the entire image)
- When painting, avoid the eyes, brows, nose, hair, etc.
- Reduce the opacity of your brush when painting in the nose, otherwise it will blend the nose into the face
- Reduce the opacity of the layer to taste (please no plastic skin!

Love #5 dinko

iClickPhotography wrote in post #9935665
Yup, went too far with the skin. You did however, do a nice job with her session outside of that.

Here is my step-by-step for image processing (in most cases)...

- Make all of your skin fixes first (patching, healing, cloning, etc)
- In the skin softening filter (I use Nik Skin Softener), select an area of the skin, don't just let the filter pick the default for you
- Adjust the various sliders to best suit your image
- Apply your softening filter onto a new layer
- Paint in the skin with a layer mask (big mistake many make by applying it to the entire image)
- When painting, avoid the eyes, brows, nose, hair, etc.
- Reduce the opacity of your brush when painting in the nose, otherwise it will blend the nose into the face
- Reduce the opacity of the layer to taste (please no plastic skin!

[GIFS ARE NOT RENDERED IN QUOTES]

) FWIW, my opacity usually ends up being somewhere between 40-70%. Less for the guys, if I use it at all.
- Merge down to a current layer or new one if you want to keep the skin smoothing separate
- Apply a USM (unsharpen mask) layer

It takes a lot less time than it sounds. After this I almost always have a dodge/burn layer and may apply some other filters (levels, curves, color, etc).

hey i noticed you're local to me. i currently live in ames, but i'm from the des moines/johnston area as well.

my steps were pretty much as you explained. I discovered imagenomics portraiture the other day so that's what I used. (i was warned it's very easy to go overboard, but i still did lol) first, used the eye dropper on the skin. i applied the effects to a separate layer and then invert-masked that layer and just painted in the parts i wanted smoothed. the only part i didn't do was knock the opacity down on the particular layer. i did try it, but didn't see a whole lot of difference so i left it at full opacity or somewhere around there. i will try your tip regarding the area around the nose and paint that in with a lower opacity brush next time. just need to allow myself a little more time to slow down and be patient with the processing. i felt i had looked at the pictures too long already and couldn't even tell anymore if it looked plasticy or not and just wanted to get some critiques.

the same model wants to set up another shoot (she thinks it's fun!). this time we plan on having a MUA come out that's also trying to build her portfolio. i will make sure to post the next set on here as well!

thanks for all the nice comments so far...it means a lot to a newbie!