Need extremely rough critic

she seems underexposed to me, and missing some "pop" if that means anything to you. Especially around the eyes. Some added contrast and some sharpening I think is what you need, after bumping up the exposure on her a bit.

Duplicate your image on a new layer and white balance the model and foreground with the dress (or simply add a levels or curves adjustment layer and do the same thing). This will warm the image. Then paint a mask to reveal the original sky and water background to preserve those blues. This will separate the model and foreground from the background and render the skin tones in a much more pleasing manner. You can tweak the opacity of this layer to modulate the effect to taste.

She's in the shade, so contrast is low, but not necessarily bad. Add a touch of contrast by pulling in your white and black points on the foreground.

Kirk

Thanks for the feedback, though I am more concerned about the sky as I haven't done any processing to the rest of the image. It was simply a test to see if I could make a beleivable selection to replace the sky, before I spend time doing the other stuff

So yeah, it does need contrast/sharpening/ge​neral pop/wb/ect. Appreciate the replies every, thank you.

Make a super high contrast levels or curves adjustment layer in photoshop to reveal lil details. Like this:

http://img8.imageshack​.us …reenshot2011021​4at151.jpg

That's something totally different ahah, but I know what it is so I'll fix that

Ooh nice water mark. Hey there's a girl in the picture too!

Brightened, highlight areas brought up, shadow areas brought down. Warmed by about 150K. (The tint of her left arm must be due to the adjacent vegetation.)

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

dr1ft wrote in post #11841286
Ooh nice water mark. Hey there's a girl in the picture too!

The watermark's size and the fact that it lines up exactly with the break in the horizon makes it difficult (impossible?) to appreciate the photo.

There's something uncomfortable (to me) about the combination of the slanted dune, her pose, and the odd, and varied, angles of the clouds in the distance. My immediate reaction was to look for clues that the shot was taken on level ground and then tilted for the dune effect, with the lower background added later. I'm not accusing you of doing that, I'm just saying the pose strikes me, personally, as unnatural. (Our beach has dunes and I don't think I've ever seen anyone get comfortable in the position that she's in.)

In any case, I think she gets lost in the scene. With the current composition, I can't tell what I'm supposed to be looking at, she looks uncomfortable, her knees look weird, and I can't figure out if there is a harbor, a bay, or what in the distance.

I prefer a crop that just barely includes her bracelet and face. With that FOV, the tones look much better (her eyes then have a chance at competing with the bracelet), there's no distracting pose or background, and it's possible to appreciate her friendly face and eyes.

Just my opinions. And I have absolutely no professional experience.

Though I appreciate the replies I don't think you guys get the point of this topic haha, I've not done any processing and this was a test to see if I could make a good enough selection to replace the sky so I'd really rather if you could give me feedback on the actual sky post work.

Or if you want to cc something that isn't that the actual shot would be fine too like cacaw has done, it's just general processing advice isn't too useful yet because I haven't done any work..

But really, thanks for all the replies.

PS I can see how it would be confusing the but watermark isn't over the horizon, look a tiny bit up, there's like buildings (tiny/black/blurred/no detail), that's the horizon here.

cacaw, I'm a little suprised to think people would take this as a "gangsta tilt" shot as the horizon is straight. What's in the background isn't apart of the story haha so I wouldn't think it would matter if you know exactly if it's a harbour/bay/ect, how does everyone else feel about that? thanks for the reply.

the talk about the watermark is actually kinda funny
it's huge, it blocks the photo. No one will steal this picture, and if this miracle happens you can still claim your rights for it by easily proving that it's yours.
The pic is ok at the most...

The "gangsta" tilt feeling comes, in large part, I think, to the placement of your watermark. The top line of the image is RIGHT on the line where the background sand/beach/diatomaceou​s earth/whatever emerges from the edge of the hill she is leaning on. Since the visual reference to this being a hill is blocked up, it appears that you've dropped a background with a level horizon into a 'gangsta' tilted image of a girl laying on a flat beach. The reason you're not getting the responses you're hoping for is that your wm is getting in the way of us being able to SEE the area you're asking about, clearly. If you need to have it that large, move it into the bottom, right so we can see the area under discussion

CallumPhoto wrote in post #11843873
... I don't think you guys get the point of this topic haha, I've not done any processing and this was a test to see if I could make a good enough selection to replace the sky so I'd really rather if you could give me feedback on the actual sky post work....just general processing advice isn't too useful yet because I haven't done any work..

Sorry we could not read between the lines, you only stated, "just take a look and see if anything looks wrong", and that is what we all did.

Sky looks ok to me, and I would not have noticed anything if you had not told me. The picture is too blue and needs fill flash.

I wouldn't have noticed anything wrong with the sky.

Also, to those who are skeptical of whether she's on a hill or on flat ground, look at the way her hair falls: It's not perpendicular to the sand, so she's definitely on a hill.

My problem is really with the white balance/skin tone. In the original, she's way too blue/green. Instead of global white balance, mask off the model and change the white balance of just the skin and dress. make her warm, not sickly cold.

korrektor wrote in post #11843949
the talk about the watermark is actually kinda funny
it's huge, it blocks the photo. No one will steal this picture, and if this miracle happens you can still claim your rights for it by easily proving that it's yours.
The pic is ok at the most...

Okay seriously, I honestly really appreciate people replying but this is useless haha.

Snydremark wrote in post #11843952
The "gangsta" tilt feeling comes, in large part, I think, to the placement of your watermark. The top line of the image is RIGHT on the line where the background sand/beach/diatomaceou​s earth/whatever emerges from the edge of the hill she is leaning on. Since the visual reference to this being a hill is blocked up, it appears that you've dropped a background with a level horizon into a 'gangsta' tilted image of a girl laying on a flat beach. The reason you're not getting the responses you're hoping for is that your wm is getting in the way of us being able to SEE the area you're asking about, clearly. If you need to have it that large, move it into the bottom, right so we can see the area under discussion

Maybe its because of the watermakr it's not as clear it's not a tilted image (though I would have thought people would know by instincts or something it's not because of the way gravity works and it translates visually and the straight horizon, ect) but anyway I'll keep investigating this gansta tilt issue.

This is what I don't understand, the water mark ISNT in the way of seeing every part of the replaced sky.

Wilt wrote in post #11843998
Sorry we could not read between the lines, you only stated, "just take a look and see if anything looks wrong", and that is what we all did.

Out of context (for example if only the first line was read) then yeah I can see how we could have a misunderstanding but this was wrote before the image and before the additional text. I didn't say anything because I try not to effect peoples perception before they've seen the image. Did you read the other bit?

Grimes wrote in post #11844070
Sky looks ok to me, and I would not have noticed anything if you had not told me. The picture is too blue and needs fill flash.

This is more or less what I mean by above and what I was after haha, thank you. Though for the sake of my education could you elaborate on why it needs fill flash? The contrast is already pretty low and the light is soft so I don't totally understand why it would be useful? Maybe to create catchlights?

nathancarter wrote in post #11844284
I wouldn't have noticed anything wrong with the sky.

Also, to those who are skeptical of whether she's on a hill or on flat ground, look at the way her hair falls: It's not perpendicular to the sand, so she's definitely on a hill.

My problem is really with the white balance/skin tone. In the original, she's way too blue/green. Instead of global white balance, mask off the model and change the white balance of just the skin and dress. make her warm, not sickly cold.

Colour correction does need to be done, and will be eventually for sure. Even though the partical green bits are natural I'll probably mask/remove it and yeah generally get the colours nicer.