First model shoot

arunak · October 14, 2008

ladytx · October 14, 2008

Nice work. I went through the gallery and you have some really nice photos in there. Nice model (be thankful she smiles for your camera ... lol). Love the red coat. Like the environment and many of the poses. The photos seem to me to need some PS tweaking though such as sharpening, etc. Again, beautiful work.

arunak · October 14, 2008

I haven't done an PS work except for converting from RAW to jpg. These days I am kind of afraid of PS that I will screwup and make the photos artificial. The resizing software has softened the photos when compared with the originals, but I will try your advice, many thanks.

ladytx wrote:

Nice work. I went through the gallery and you have some really nice photos in there. Nice model (be thankful she smiles for your camera ... lol). Love the red coat. Like the environment and many of the poses. The photos seem to me to need some PS tweaking though such as sharpening, etc. Again, beautiful work.

ladytx · October 14, 2008

arunak wrote:

I haven't done an PS work except for converting from RAW to jpg. These days I am kind of afraid of PS that I will screwup and make the photos artificial. The resizing software has softened the photos when compared with the originals, but I will try your advice, many thanks.

When you are working in Photoshop always duplicate your photo so you are not working on the original and work on layers that way you can dial down the opacity or turn it off altogether is you don't like the results. I can screen capture a photo and show you what I am referring to if you like.

I have a problem with the photos being softer when they appear here in the forum than when I am viewing them on my computer.

arunak · October 14, 2008

Sure, you can do that, I would like to lean how much I can improve these photos with PS.

Yeah I never work with the original, and I used to do heavy PS when I was shooting with my D100, but now I have become lazy and leave it as is. I have tried many techniques, and my problem is when I PS, I don't know when to stop and then screw it up, eventually.

In my monitor the full res photo look very sharp, but here it is a bit soft, I agree with you.

Thanks.

ladytx wrote:

When you are working in Photoshop always duplicate your photo so you are not working on the original and work on layers that way you can dial down the opacity or turn it off altogether is you don't like the results. I can screen capture a photo and show you what I am referring to if you like.

I have a problem with the photos being softer when they appear here in the forum than when I am viewing them on my computer.

ladytx · October 14, 2008

I tried to not do too much but just give the photo a little lift. I oversharpened a little hoping it would show well after uploading. I increased the saturation a bit, increased red for the jacket and black. I lightened a bit. I sharpened the eyes on their own layer.

Before:

After:

gavin · October 14, 2008

Some nice images in there. Well done however most of them seem to be a tad bit soft or "out of focus"

Qarik · October 14, 2008

I like the composition in most. They do appear a tad soft and noisy. They definitely need a littlte PP love because they lack pop.

arunak · October 14, 2008

I wonder if it was the D2XMode 1 I was using. When I uploaded it to my camera, the sharpness was set to so low. I did not mess with it, but was wondering if that is the reason for this softness?

Qarik wrote:

I like the composition in most. They do appear a tad soft and noisy. They definitely need a littlte PP love because they lack pop.

arunak · October 14, 2008

Thanks ladytx! I see the improvement. I will try this on my originals and see.

ladytx wrote:

I tried to not do too much but just give the photo a little lift. I oversharpened a little hoping it would show well after uploading. I increased the saturation a bit, increased red for the jacket and black. I lightened a bit. I sharpened the eyes on their own layer.

Before:

After:

Nikolai · October 14, 2008

Just a kwikie:

nice variety of locations, outfits, poses and expressions
nice low angle on standing up poses
most if not all images look very soft and somewhat dirty (maybe because you were using your 85/1.8 wide open and misfocused )
composition is virtually non-existent: dead centers, cut off head and limbs, acres of negative space
on-camera flash is not what you want to use when shooting a model, except when you're in a tight spot, have absolutely no other alternative and you're using it as fill only. I understand all Nikon speedlites are remotable by definition, so you could simply hold it in your hand off the camera.

HTH

zweiblumen · October 14, 2008

Arunak,

Others have already done a better job that I can of critiquing portrait shots. For those of us that are lazy, embedding the photos in your post instead of making links to them would be great! You don't even have to attach them like you did for the one. Schmoo wrote a great tute here with details.

HTH

-Trav

arunak · October 15, 2008

Thanks All.
Thank You very much. All of this has been very helpful. With the critique I received I have further deleted my photos, (cut limbs, dead-centers, unused pointless space, etc).

Still I am not sure of "cut off points" for portraiture, so that the "limbs" are not missed in the portraiture.

zweiblumen wrote:

Arunak,

Others have already done a better job that I can of critiquing portrait shots. For those of us that are lazy, embedding the photos in your post instead of making links to them would be great! You don't even have to attach them like you did for the one. Schmoo wrote a great tute here with details.

HTH

-Trav

kombizz · October 20, 2008

like the last shot with better focussing

Scott_Quier · October 20, 2008

Also just a quick look

<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif" border="0" alt="" >Watch your backgrounds. In many, you have bright and/or very hot areas that draw attention away from your model (see #2 for example)
<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif" border="0" alt="" >Watch the intensity of your backlighting (see #5) - the hair is completely blown
<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/thumb.gif" border="0" alt="" >#7 is very nice. I like the composition and the blurred background. I'm not sure I like the cut off hand. The cut off hair - no big deal.
<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif" border="0" alt="" >Watch your centering. #14 would be so much better if you had shifted your camera view just >< that much to the left. See also #15, 33, 34, 35, 38 - 41.
<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif" border="0" alt="" >Watch the focus of your reflector (see #20 - 24) - you need to light her up, no the fence rail.
<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif" border="0" alt="" >On-camera flash killed #38 - 41. Do you see the side shadow your model is casting on the background? Solution - get that flash off-camera so the shadow that is cast is either more pleasing and/or out view of the camera.
<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/thumb.gif" border="0" alt="" >I really like the variety of locations, outfits, poses, etc. I really like the red coat = it seems that color works quite well for your model. The warmer colors also worked well in your natural backgrounds. Against the "man-made" ones, I wonder how a cooler color outfit would work out?
I would love to know the EXIF of some of these. Some of them seem a bit more than just a bit grainy and that may be a function of the compression you have applied or it could be a camera settings issue.

First model shoot

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