First "studio" Portrait - CC welcome

Fellow POTN'ers..

I was asked to shoot the daughter of a co-worker for her confirmation. I had for the first time borrowed some strobes (2) that I used in addition to my flash. It was definitely a nice experience be using semi-professional lighting, even if it was in my own living room.

Sadly the girl was wearing some polyester looking like fabric (very shiny) and thus the reflection of light was quite troublesome. Anyways - I have underneath posted one of my favorite pictures of the day straight out of the camera and processed. Please let me know what you think if something pops into your mind...

PS. I know the red almost totally blown out, but i'm clueless how to fix it - if possible at all.

Original - F/4.0, 1/60 sec, Iso 200

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You should be shooting at either 1/200th or 1/250th sec. with "Studio" lighting to avoid motion blur, your at 1/60th here which is too slow. You should be set at ISO 100. Also consider getting your subject further away from the backdrop ( around 8ft ) to get some separation and avoid shadows. The skin tone looks off, did you set your WB before shooting? I see that you were trying a "High key" effect on the second photo but it doesn't look right, partly because the original you had to work with is underexposed (And the skin tone looks unnatural) .

The PP is not good. You've made an underexposed photo overexposed and whites have been clipped. WB is off a bit. Also the contrast seems wrong and the color of the eyes doesn't look like. In portrait photography, eyes are verything.

What I have to say is that PP takes practice and with it, pretty much anything's possible but many PP jobs can take a ton of time, especially if you're not a pro at it. I dunno what PP work you did but you will need to spend more time on it (a long step-by-step process). It's an art that takes patience.

Turn your "image editing OK" in your User Control Panel and you might get some processing help. But you really under exposed the photo to begin with. You should be monitoring your histogram while shooting, not trying to fix it on a computer.

Is your monitor calibrated for color and brightness?

Try to use polarizer to avoid reflections (better make-up would also help)

Ok, here goes...

First off, get your subject away from the background first and foremost. Judging by the picture, shes right up against a wall. Have her take 3-5 good steps towards you...at least.

Second, raise your shutter speed and drop to ISO 100...that will help kill the ambient light. When shooting in a studio, i generally use my highest sync speed(usually 1/200-1/250) to have the maximum amount of control over ambient light as my studio is fairly open and well lit. Remember, shutter speed controls ambient light exposure, aperture controls flash exposure. After you get your shutter set, leave it and dial your lights and aperture accordingly to get whatever exposure you are going after. For standard studio portraits, i generally shoot for a F7-9ish stop to help maximize sharpness and have a good DOF.

Third...when taking 1/3 length portraits, use a portrait camera orientation. You used a landscape orientation and there is alot of empty space in the photo that could have been better used to capture more of the subject. Not a rule, but would have worked MUCH better in your situation. Also, have her GENTLY wipe her face with a soft towel to remove any shine on her face...makes post go much faster.

Where were your light(s) positioned and what modifier, if any were you using?

Start with that and post up your results...then we can move on to post processing techniques.

As multipleflash set ups go, this requires a little more practise and a background (remember no creases).

Using a very rudimentary web based program, I adjusted the curves and did some small touch up in about 60 seconds to bring more light to the photo without completely blowing it out. Using PS or equivalent program and you can make this picture look good. If you want me to delete the adjustment I made, let me know.

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Tell your model to powder her forehead, chin, and cheekbones.