Potraits: I did a family photoshoot for a guy who wanted to give the photos to his wife for Christmas. He & I were quite pleased with the results, but I know there is room for...

Quickflash Loc: Loganville, Ga

I did a family photoshoot for a guy who wanted to give the photos to his wife for Christmas. He & I were quite pleased with the results, but I know there is room for improvement. I'm looking for honest C&C.

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

Nice job. The girl alone is particularly nice - good lighting.

Hands are always a problem. I would not have anyone put that hand around her like dad - it is the dreaded "claw." That mystery hand appearing from nowhere. The guy on our left might have hooked his thumb in that pocket, but I don't know unless I saw it.

I think I would have cropped it square to cut off the hands (not the claw) altogether as there is an awful lot of image in that lower half that could go away.

The second image is great. - Nice nose shadow. Well done.

Quickflash Loc: Loganville, Ga

Capt. C, Thank you so much for your critique! I agree, I suck at posing hands. I'm thinking of attempting to clone out the offending 'claw'. Perhaps I should also crop just above dad's belt. The brother (on the left) totally was not into it. He was not real easy to work with. I was happy to get a good facial expression. The girl was very easy to work with.
The 2nd image I have to give partial credit to you and Bobby Deal for teaching me so much about lighting. You guys have taught me more than I could have ever learned anywhere else. If you remember critiquing some of my earlier portrait attempts, I think you'll agree that my lighting skills have progressed quite a bit, thanks to your feedback.

Quickflash Loc: Loganville, Ga

I tried some cloning and a tighter crop. I'm not sure about the crop, but the 'claw' is gone.

Cloned & Cropped

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

Better, IMO. Now if you shot this in raw, you could take care of that red complexion on dad by going to the ACR HSL and moving the red and orange sliders to the right just a touch. If it takes too much out and the others look too pale, then you may have to open it in the raw converter twice and combine layers, but IMO, he is pretty red.

Shine11 Loc: London UK

I really like the colour choice of the background to subtley contrast with the clothes

Quickflash Loc: Loganville, Ga

Thanks Capt. I did shoot this in Raw, and did try to make dad less red. I am not that proficient yet with Ps, but I'll take another crack at it. However, he really pretty much that red.

CaptainC wrote:

Better, IMO. Now if you shot this in raw, you could take care of that red complexion on dad by going to the ACR HSL and moving the red and orange sliders to the right just a touch. If it takes too much out and the others look too pale, then you may have to open it in the raw converter twice and combine layers, but IMO, he is pretty red.

Quickflash Loc: Loganville, Ga

Thanks for looking and for your comment.

Shine11 wrote:

I really like the colour choice of the background to subtley contrast with the clothes

A10 Loc: Southern Indiana

I like the crop and the cloning out of the "claw". I would have tilted the girl's head a little more towards dad and turned the son so he was not so sideways. I understand if the son was uncooperative the facial expression is more important.

Quickflash Loc: Loganville, Ga

Thanks A10, I think those a valid points. I should have had her head tilted more toward dad for sure. As for the brother, I may have shot this as is because I caught him smiling. Had I tried to tweak the pose, I may may not have been able to get what I got.

creativ simon Loc: Coulsdon, South London

Quickflash wrote:

I tried some cloning and a tighter crop. I'm not sure about the crop, but the 'claw' is gone.

Downloaded your image put it in photoshop, used the lasso tool on Father's face tweaked the hue slightly and lowered the saturation. If you would like to see the result just let me know and I will upload

creativ simon Loc: Coulsdon, South London

Quickflash wrote:

I did a family photoshoot for a guy who wanted to give the photos to his wife for Christmas. He & I were quite pleased with the results, but I know there is room for improvement. I'm looking for honest C&C.

Father's hand for sure but seen your cropped image, much better, very attractive girl

LindaB Loc: Indiana

Just a thought. I looked at it cropped with more taken off the bottom. Crop the bottom to the end of the boy's sleeve. This takes his arm out of the picture, as the arm is lighter than the background and the clothes. This seems to focus more emphasis on their faces.

jonsommer Loc: Usually, somewhere on the U.S. west coast.

Yep, I agree, the cropped version is MUUUUCH better.

Quickflash Loc: Loganville, Ga

Simon, I would love to see what you've done. Please post it. I've tried doing that, and I thought it just didn't look like him, but I'd would like to see you version of it.
Thanks

creativ simon wrote:

Downloaded your image put it in photoshop, used the lasso tool on Father's face tweaked the hue slightly and lowered the saturation. If you would like to see the result just let me know and I will upload