Mothers Day portrait

Xandertures

Hello, first time poster here

I took some photos of my children for a mother's day present. I really liked how this one turned out, despite the amount of processing it took to correct the blown out lighting from that day.

EXIF:
Nikon D50
Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 @ f/2.8
Exposure 1/250
ISO 200
Editing done in PSE 5.0

Thanks for looking!

System

pretty lady and good recovery re pp-

think about what you did with metering; maybe ended up metering the bg or used full weighted or average metering-

maybe try spot or partial metering on the face-

glad you're posting here-

Swartzy

Welcome!
Pretty smile! The lighting is quite flat with no shadows or contrast so, just for the heck of it I thought I'd mess with it in PS. Hope you don't mind. We often do stuff like that here on the forums....heheh, that's how we learn all kinds of new stuff

Xandertures

Thanks for the compliments and suggestions. If I may ask, what adjustments did you make to the image I posted? I'm a bit new to Photoshop in general however I have basic knowledge of most componants. Your version definitely makes the subject stand out more.

rosselliot

this is what I would do.

she is too centered in your picture for the amount of background you have showing, and she is blown out. I cropped to account for the first problem, and whenever I have the light problem, I make it black and white, because when I do black and white conversions, I purposely over expose them anyway. I also made the blacks blacker and did a curve adjustment and upped the recovery bar. Black and Whites usually look classier and better anyways...



- RE

rosselliot

rosselliot wrote:

this is what I would do.

she is too centered in your picture for the amount of background you have showing, and she is blown out. I cropped to account for the first problem, and whenever I have the light problem, I make it black and white, because when I do black and white conversions, I purposely over expose them anyway. I also made the blacks blacker and did a curve adjustment and upped the recovery bar. Black and Whites usually look classier and better anyways...



- RE

also, I would hope your original picture is higher resolution than the one you posted and I think the black and white works in this instance, because your subject was in competition with the background, the lantana or whatever those yellow flowers were - and in the black and white, the picture is clearly all about her.

- RE

Xandertures

Of course it's higher resolution, granted I only have a 6.1mp D50.

Appreciate the input everyone