I agree with Gordon what ever you feel comfor. with
I did not catch the 3 foot print ok I also have a program for just that but not the printer size
croping is manily to element unwanted objects in a shot. You need to Resize your photos not crop. Resize will reduce the size of pixels. (pixels is the picture) Like my canon will shot 3240x4120 I resize them to 800 they upload and print well.
You really did not give enough info as such what settings your using. I am not real familiar whit the Camera you have. I have a Canon Rebel T-3 I get great results with. Your lens are ok But not much change with them. Your problem to me sounds like the (if) your using portrait setting is backwards. On that setting the subject should be crisp and back ground blured. Need more info I guess. Take on object ie: vase,lamp something that can not move and shot it on every setting ( the beauty) of Dig. hit delete and move on.see if there's any differents make notes and go from there
The Pro's use Nikons I use Canon those are the only two I would consider But to me the Canon is more affordable than the nikon. I have a Canon Rebal T-3 High speed camera I happen to like it very much.
Photos are going to look different from pc image to print image. The printer reads the pixels the same as the pc but then transfers them to ink. I have a Lexmark impact s305. This is a photo printer And I get some diff. in the image.I would not do to much comparing from print to pc. you could try lighting up the image some just prior to printing. I see your diff. but they both still look great.
The Cropped with lightened faces looks great There is a second crop that one has taken to much out of the frame I would go with the Lightened faces.
Just the umbrella and reflector. I have semi gloss cielings so I bounce light off of it in many indoor shots using a 430 EX speedlite. I have a Canon Rebal T-3
love the depth of the B/W photo
was all the lighting affects needed? A speedlite I feel would have worked well with out all the set up work. just my 2cents
crop out the AC unit that is above them on the side of the building, Crop out the other buggie than put a border around it. A simple photo program or Paint program will do it. All PC come with some form of photo program.