How can I save this Picture?

dragon300zx

I like parts of it but hate part of it.



I love that "what the hell do you think your doing, I want presents look" but not sure bout the rest of it.

cletus

Any guesses as to what you don't like about it???

I think darkening the background would do a lot for it. After that, maybe trying to get rid of the girl's shadow that was caused by the flash.

dragon300zx

yup the background is what i hate.

patch29

I would go of for a tight crop, just keeping all her hair in the image, clean up a bit of the background if it still interferes, you lose the dress, but I think you will gain a lot.


I changed my mind, take it in even tighter as a headshot. It will give you a very different feel, try and see if you like it.

fish

Tough one. I'm not sure it can be "saved." The girl's expression doesn't exactly warm the heart...it's somewhat melancholy. If you tight crop around the face, I think you'll find that the face is blown out. My guess is that your camera tried to meter for both the light face and the dark dress. Flash was too hot. Background too cluttered, and there's a bit of another human over to the right.

Can you take another?

snapapple

Fish, I disagree...

fish wrote:

Tough one. I'm not sure it can be "saved." The girl's expression doesn't exactly warm the heart...it's somewhat melancholy. If you tight crop around the face, I think you'll find that the face is blown out. My guess is that your camera tried to meter for both the light face and the dark dress. Flash was too hot. Background too cluttered, and there's a bit of another human over to the right.

Can you take another?

I think the picture has a classic look, a Mona Lisa smile. I tried a quick fix. I cropped, trying to keep the hand in. I love childrens hands. To change the color of the chair, I selected it with the magic wand. Then slid the hue/saturation slider on the hue line over to a deep red. Then I slid the saturation down to almost gone. This changed it to the color it is. Then I cloned in some of the background shadows all around the background in blotches. I left the shadows around the head so I didn't have to touch the tiny hairs. I increased the saturation a little to increase the color in the face. I dodged the whites of the eyes and the highlight on the lip. The only thing I didn't do was to spend much time around the hand. That could be done more carefully when cloning in the background so as not to blur it. Anyway, I think it can be saved. I don't think the occassion will be there again to reshoot so this is what I'd do.

Dragon, if have any trouble, send me a pm and I'll give you more details.

dragon300zx

Thanks snapple I'll try that tonight. And fish the expression is what I love the most about the picture.

fish

dragon300zx wrote:

Thanks snapple I'll try that tonight. And fish the expression is what I love the most about the picture.

what do I know?

dragon300zx

every one see's somethign different in a photograph thats what makes it fun.