Portrait critique request: Melissa

G

gqtuazon

Gear Head
I'm still fairly new to studio type photography. I had a recent request from a friend to take a picture of her daughter to submit it to their modeling agent. Although the mom was pretty pleased, I would like to ask if there are any suggestions on how to improve the image such as lighting, hair style suggestion, and the overall post processing which only included adjusting the contrast, black, cleaned up some of the skin imperfections, and re-size.

Is the picture too sharp or does it needs to be soften up a little?

The rest of the images are posted below.

GQTUAZON PHOTOGRAPHY | Melissa Rose

Thanks for looking.

Camera: D800E on tripod
Lens: Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VRII @ 200mm
Aperture: f8
Shutter speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Two strobes( Medium octobox left) 22" beauty dish right, SB900 bottom to fill shadows around the neck, 1 SB 800 (SU 4 mode) to illuminate the background.

Edited: corrected the uneven eyes


Melissa by gqtuazon, on Flickr
 
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Whiskeyman

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
Shouldn't her eyes be level with one another? And though I'm uncertain, I believe that the SB-600 lighting the background should be pointed a bit higher so that the background illumination is more even around the pirimeter and appears as though there is a halo around the head.

Great shot, though. You've done quite well for your early attempt.
 
J

JPar

Senior Member
I took the liberty of bringing the shot into Lightroom and making some adjustments. Hope you don't mind. :)

- straightened to level out eyes
- cropped a bit to center her more
- reduced the exposure by .15; it looked a little over-exposed
- bumped the contrast by by 15
- adjusted the shadows and black and white level (+26 shadow, -23 white, +29 black) - this was to bring some of the glare down
- bumped clarity up by 80, vibrance by 25, saturation by 6 to help make it "pop" a little more
- bumped luminance by 100 to eliminate the noise, detail by 75 to compensate for the luminance's "dreamy" effect
- bumped color and detail up by 100


Let me know what you think. :) nikonites-portrait-edit.jpg
 
G

gqtuazon

Gear Head
Whiskeyman said:
Shouldn't her eyes be level with one another? And though I'm uncertain, I believe that the SB-600 lighting the background should be pointed a bit higher so that the background illumination is more even around the pirimeter and appears as though there is a halo around the head.

Great shot, though. You've done quite well for your early attempt.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I don't have a snoot to position the light where I wanted it. Not all portrait or head shots has to have that feature (similar to the school's yearbook since some uses a "one light" set-up depending on the artistic effect that the photographers wanted to create. I'll look into the eyes being parallel. Thanks again.

Edited: Corrected the uneven eyes as suggested. The high resolution of the image drives me crazy. The hair strands that sticks out is starting to annoy me and had to get rid of some.
 
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G

gqtuazon

Gear Head
JPar said:
I took the liberty of bringing the shot into Lightroom and making some adjustments. Hope you don't mind. :)

- straightened to level out eyes
- cropped a bit to center her more
- reduced the exposure by .15; it looked a little over-exposed
- bumped the contrast by by 15
- adjusted the shadows and black and white level (+26 shadow, -23 white, +29 black) - this was to bring some of the glare down
- bumped clarity up by 80, vibrance by 25, saturation by 6 to help make it "pop" a little more
- bumped luminance by 100 to eliminate the noise, detail by 75 to compensate for the luminance's "dreamy" effect
- bumped color and detail up by 100


Let me know what you think. :)View attachment 40852
Click to expand...

Jpar - although I appreciate your effort, I fine the skin tone and the overall look "unnatural" to my taste or it could be my monitor that could be too bright. I must admit that it is not calibrated.
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Glenn, I think your shot could be greatly improved just by cropping. I would bring the seam of her right shoulder just in the corner and would rotate the crop to have an imaginary line going right across the lower left corner and the right upper corner go through the middle of her nose and left eye. This would give the shot more dynamic feel and a little bit of mischief in her look. If you want, I could PM you what I mean or post it here since you've clearly indicated that you DON'T want your shots edited.

As far as the lighting goes, I would have liked to see an hair light and would have made the background a little darker.

​
 
G

gqtuazon

Gear Head
Marcel said:
Glenn, I think your shot could be greatly improved just by cropping. I would bring the seam of her right shoulder just in the corner and would rotate the crop to have an imaginary line going right across the lower left corner and the right upper corner go through the middle of her nose and left eye. This would give the shot more dynamic feel and a little bit of mischief in her look. If you want, I could PM you what I mean or post it here since you've clearly indicated that you DON'T want your shots edited.

As far as the lighting goes, I would have liked to see an hair light and would have made the background a little darker.

​
Click to expand...

Hi Marcel. Thank you for your feedback. Please go ahead and edit the photo so that others who are interested may also learn from it.

A snoot or honeycomb grid will probably provide some artistic lighting effect. Use a single light with reflector with some of my shots.
 
R

Rick M

Senior Member
Without doing a full blown critique as portraits are not my "thing", suggestions would be:

-Without a "hair-light" the background might have benefited from more even lighting
-I think the background is too in focus, either use a larger aperture (5.6-6.3) or more distance behind her. The background wrinkles are very apparent.
 
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