First Post and some pics

[hollynla]

Hi, I've been lurking for several months and and finally today set up an account here. Here are a couple pics I took in the past few days.
Why did I lose the catchlights in her eyes when I shrunk the file?

[hollynla]

and then this cutie that happens to be mine.:):
and now I see the areas that need to be blackened, lol. It was a play shot with a new lens:dunno

[David_S85]

Welcome to DGrin!

Charming looking kids and great first post. I like the 2nd posted shot a lot. Good composition :thumb What is a little distracting, though, is the size of your signature on these. Could be lots smaller.



and then this cutie that happens to be mine.:):
and now I see the areas that need to be blackened, lol. It was a play shot with a new lens:dunno

[Mongrel]

and welcome to Dgrin-don't forget to enter Andy's 'Lurker Challenge' details are in the "De-lurk yourselves" thread :dunno I'm just not sure where that is at the moment....:scratch

anyway....

First shot: Lovely girl, lovely expression, well caugth portrait indeed. Even the off-center composition works (for me anyway) in this shot.

Niggles-seems a little too light on monitor (which is calibrated), but I don't know how it looks on yours, so to you it may not be light. Also, the crossed arms position bothers me just a *slight* bit-but this is very subjective so if *you* like it, leave it that way.

This is a very *usable* picture (read: keeper)

Shot #2-

Everything about the subject I like-A LOT. The pose, the lighting, the exposure, expression and compostion-no problem with any of that for me at all.

However-the Photoshopped 'background' kills this pic for me. Not because it unfinished or you are still tweaking it. But because, well, photoshopped backgrounds are just that-photoshopped (read: faked). Nothing to my mind beats either a natural background and bokeh, or a nice studio backdrop for portraits. Again, this is *my* opinion and you and others may not be bothered by it at all.

I'm not sure what the shot looked like before the post processed background, but I 'd love to see what you had to work with. Why not post it?

Hope this was helpful to you, and again WELCOME to Dgrin :D

DOH! Almost forgot-I can't tell you why you lost the highlights in the first shot, but they are pretty easy to add in photoshop.

[Nir]

Hi Holly! Welcome aboard!


The second shot is really super!! Composition, lighting, sharpness, everything!

[hollynla]

Thanks everyone, I do need to callabrate my monitor, any software suggestions for that?


Also, the second picture was taken with a makeshift black background, however, with the 420EX bouncing off the ceiling, it made parts of the background light up also so I "attempted" to black it out. Didn't work:huh I have a lightsphere coming in this week which should help with the flash lighting issues.

In the first picture, she had some great catchlights in her eyes, but when I reduced the picture for posting, they were gone:scratch (btw, not my daughter, don't have one of those).

Great to be here! Everyday is another lesson learned.

Holly (yeah my sig is a little big in that one picture)

[lynnma]

Hi Hollynla :wave welcome to digrin!!

[ehughes]

Welcome Hollynla -