More of Thursday's Family

anonymouscuban

Got through all the shots from this session so thought I'd share a few favs.

1 - Mom, Grandson, Step-Dad, Son and Daughter (babies mom)


2


4 (LOL)


5


6


7


8


9

Diggers

I LOVE them all but #5 & #9 stop me in my tracks! I Love the composition in 5 and the leading lines are very Feng Shui. The tight crop and amazing clarity of #9 just pulls me into this little ones eyes! I can see this forum becoming my new internet addiction!

divamum

Agree with diggers - those are the two "wow" shots. This is a great traditional portrait set, though, Alex - you nailed it. I'm sure they're pleased!

anonymouscuban

Thank you guys. It means a lot to me to hear you all like them. Just dealing with the skin tone issues now. Really frustrating. BTW, you guys picked my favorites as well.

Sam

Alex,

You are fast becoming a great people photographer.

Skin tones will always be somewhat of an issue. For some reason we are hard wired to
to easily see what our brains perceive as wrong or off color in skin tones, where we don't see as readily
wrong or off color objects.

Sam

anonymouscuban

Thanks Sam. You're right about noticing off skin tones but I think that totally makes sense. Skin tones tend to be consistent and its easy to spot when it's off. I mean, we have consistent reference points hardwired in our brains, whereas inanimate objects come in all shades, right.

It's funny quite funny to me that "white" people want so badly to be tan and people of color (is that PC?) want so much to be white.

When I travelled to the Philippines there were advertisements on TV, billboards, magazines, etc. for skin whitening treatments. My favorite was the slogan "White is Beautiful" for a skin whitening treatment that is made from human placenta!!!

anonymouscuban

Here a few I added to the gallery and the Mom is going bananas over. Thought I share:

divamum

Great stuff Alex. What are the collage templates? I like the drop shadows - are they an action or.....?

anonymouscuban

No action or templates. Just imported all the images to PS from LR as layers and then did the math and expanded the canvas. Arranged the images, centered and stuff, then added the drop shadow to each photo layer.

It's funny because this is the kind of thing I think I really suck at when it comes to PS. I've never taken a PS class or read a book on the subject so when it comes to using the guide, ruler and other tools like that, I suck big time. I do everything manually. Literally, I count each "nudge" when moving the pics around to figure out even placement of them. I know there is an easier way, just never done much of this stuff to bother figuring it out.

Lightsearcher

Those are really nice portraits, love the lightning and natural poses.

One think that intriguing me is the highlights on some of your pictures are hard on the subject faces, picture 6 and 9.

I'm using a calibrated monitor and somebody else noticed that in another of your post.

Regards,

Marcelo

anonymouscuban

Thanks Marcelo.

Yeah, I strive to get everything perfect but it just doesn't happen sometimes. I know the highlights on some of my shots are too much for some but I honestly don't mind them. I don't feel they detract from the image and there is no loss in detail. The highlights aren't blown. I guess it's one of those creative differences I'm willing to live with.