One Family - two portraits

[South Shore Snapshots]

With a new addition to our family, I wanted to head out on this lovely fall day and try out my new DA 35mm LTD - technically a macro lens - as a portrait lens. Quite pleased with the results though I'm sure a few of few will find enough flaws to get me thinking before my next such session.

This first one is a pretty tight crop, but I think I may need to go even further...

http://southshoresnapshots.smugmug.com/photos/392420809_3t5Vw-XL.jpg

This next one has a nice tight crop already, but is uneven if you consider my elbow is out while there's space to the left of my wife...

http://southshoresnapshots.smugmug.com/photos/392421230_ZuZEn-L.jpg

Thanks for looking,

Rob

[Darren Troy C]

To me, both seem overexposed.....1st one by @ least 1/2 and maybe as much as a whole stop on the 2nd. I really like the comps though....and yep the elbow sticking out should have been in frame. What software are you using?

[WingsOfLovePhoto]

I like the comp and the setting of the first one I would just somehow fix the background to show the true colors of the leaves. I am sure they might have been more spectacular than they seem in the photo and maybe change the hue/contrast on the faces, they are a little too similar as the leaves. Beautiful family you have, congrats on the 2 and 1....same as mine...watch out for that baby girl after 2 boys! It is quite a challenge. My "baby" is now 19! So take lots of pictures, time goes by so fast!

[sweet caroline]

Incredibly cute family- beautiful children. I also like the composition, but agree with others that they are overexposed. I think you're right that the first one should be cropped tighter.

Self portraits are so hard, in my opinion. Yours are better than the ones I've attempted so far. We're hoping to do a family portrait next weekend as a b-day present for my mother-in-law. Hopefully, I'll have something to post.

Looking forward to hearing any advice on self-family portraits from others who've done them.

Caroline

[South Shore Snapshots]

Thanks for the quick input friends. I do concur, they are a bit overexposed. Sometimes, I think it's just the brightness of my iMac, but then when I looked at the same two shots here on my Dell laptop, I could see they still appear to be too bright. Without sending them off to be printed though, I can't say for sure.

My workflow varies from shot to shot, but in this case, I used Bibble Lite to import the raw file, cropped, then applied the Athentech one-touch colour correction button, added some fill light, and then some basic sharpening. Afterwards, I opened the newly created .jpg file in Photoshop Elements, reduced the file to 1200 width and then applied one final sharpening.

Rob

[Sam]

Rob,

You don't have to print it to know it's over exposed. Look at your histogram.

The white balance is also off.

LCD's are typically too bright, and with out a calibrated monitor it can anywhere from problematic to impossible to process an image correctly.

Here is a quick fix that put the image closer to what it should look like.

Sam