DSLR Photography Forum

Here is a photo of my family.....Just seems to me it needs that something extra to give it a boost......I would be grateful for any input..

I dunno NJS - I think it looks pretty good actually. You have avoided the ususal portrait pitfalls of uneven lighting, refelctions on glasses, and over-sharpening. Your exposures are good - even on the white T-shirt.

You might try some VERY light dodging on the little girl's eyes to highlight them some more , and maybe remove a couple of the small distracting objects from the background - but otherwsie I think you have a winner here.

Some might advise to soften the focus a bit on the mother - but I wouldn't. I like it how it is - nice work.

Added some "fill flash" with a luminosity layer and cropped:

(before and after)



P.S. Welcome! It's a pleasant enough portrait as it is. In high-contrast scenes I like to use a little fill flash to open up the shadows, so that's why I added it here, albeit with photoshop.

Here is my try.

I worked with Mum's face a little, under her eyes with the scratch remover, and then push and soft tools. Also I worked in her forehead a bit. I used the burn tool in her lips and then push and soft again. I used those (push and soft) tools in a very low scale. I added a bit of light in the girl eyes with the push tool as well. Maybe you could do better with the original file. Then, following Mitch advice, I used fill flash to light up the whole picture.

Welcome njs

Hi NJS

welcome bienvenido

uuhmmm, what do you need? I mean it looks ok to me the all pix. Is a bit constrasty but not bad. If you need to disfuse or blur part it will work a bit on that. I would also lighten a bit the eyes of the little girl.

Irma your blur in the head is just a bit to notorius. I can see where you have done the changes. maybe a bit softer the brush or the input.

Im working this weekend so will try do post it back on sunday.

Take care

Christian

Must retouch... need fix ... arrrggghhh!

Welcome aboard NJS! Lovely photo, natural light all the way?

Welcome, NJS! Here's my version - soft focus, lightened the girl's eyes a bit, pronounced the light a bit more on the right, ironed out the wrinkle on mom's forehead...



Edit: BTW this is a lovely picture to begin with!

My rendition...

Jerry, this is beautiful. And inspiring. I couldn't resist to convert my try to BW also:



Or even only partially, although it doesn't do justice to the mother:

Hi njs, and welcome to Shuttertalk!

I like the closer crops - the hand in the bottom left should definitely be left out.

Welcome to the frendliest little forum on the net. I really like all the versions shown here. Here's mine.

Nice idea, Peto!

ST, I'd like to disagree. I don't think the hand should be cropped definitely. I think with the hand and the shoulder of Mom, the picture has more information of the way they were posing. To me, it looks like an unconscious loving and protective gesture, as if she were holding the girls hand. It's probably just me, but I really like it better.

guerito Wrote:To me, it looks like an unconscious loving and protective gesture, as if she were holding the girls hand.

Would be very nice if that were in the frame.

njs? hello? Are you out there?

Thanks for the input guys...........Sorry I have not responded sooner but have been away for work overnight.....

I like the soft focus and the coloured b&w look great too.......

The title is something I have wanted to learn for a while now, how did you do you that?

Cheers
Nathan

Hi Nathan. The B&W with colour is rather easy to get. In photoshop you duplicate the layer and desaturate the first layer leaving the under lying layer colour. Then you just have to erase the top top layer to reveal the underneath colour. There are a few ways of achieving this.
Btw, lovely family you have.

njs Wrote:The title is something I have wanted to learn for a while now, how did you do you that?

Hey Nathan - a few ways you can achieve the title ( I assume you're talking about Jericho's rendition)...

you can create another blank image but larger, and then just copy and paste the current one in, and add the text.

hi everyone

uuhmmm looks like everyone has done all that i wanted.

not much to do left.

cya

Thanks folks for the input.............It has been a wonderful introduction to this forum......Very friendly and helpful folk......Certaintly will be hanging around here......

Will give the advice a go.....

Cheers
Nathan

Here's my try - may look too boxed in . . .

Nathan:

This is a beautiful portrait. I don't think anyone can really improve it.

I am not going to do anything to this shot but will say that I think a little softening is all that is needed then print and place in a nice frame.

Cheers again folks....

Thanks for the help and advice....