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

David_S85

Welcome to DGrin!

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

hollynla wrote:

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

Mongrel

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

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

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 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 (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 welcome to digrin!!

ehughes

Welcome Hollynla -