Ally and Jeff engagement photos.

zoomer

Taken on a cloudy snowy day. d300 70-200 f2.8 all taken at 400iso and f2.8 with small off camera soft box for lighting because the overall light was so flat. Both these photos have a soft focus effect on them.

jeffreaux2

These are both very nice. You have carried the skin smoothing a tad farther than I usually take it. I worry about my portraits looking like so many I have seen with the "claymation" look.

A couple of nit picks would be.....

- Do you think you can get an 8x10 crop from either of these without losing part(s) of your composition?
- Part...a small part...of her jacket appears just below his ear and makes it look as if he is wearing an earring...
- On the second one there is a shiny spot on her nose that could use a healing or cloning tool.

I like the compositions and lighting, and the poses look good too. My only worry, again, is that they appear very tight for enlargements.

zoomer

Hi Jeff,
The soft focus effect makes them look a little extra smooth. That seems be the look these days anyway, who wants reality?
These are full frame photos with no crop, they will be printed at 8x12.

Thanks for taking a look and taking the time to respond.
If I need to reedit these for any reason I will take off the "earring", thanks for pointing that out!

DavidS

Nice expressions and lighting.

leaforte

Handsome couple, nice original poses, and I like the focus on the ring in the second. My eyes weres drawn to it after the handsomeness of the couple. I actually thought he WAS wearing an earring until it was pointed out that it was part of the jacket...easy fix.

Agnieszka

Love the poses ... but I think the soft focus on the first image (especially on the left side) looks a bit too fake, I woudl just tune it down a little on that side, I think it looks great on their faces, just the background on the left side ... But I LOVE the light the way you framed the photo and the way you posed them, and I am sure the couple loves the photos.

Mitchell

I like these poses.

What are you using to apply your soft focus effect?

zoomer

Hi Mitchell,
Thanks for taking a look.

control J
gaussian blur 10
layer opacity 10%

Pretty simple but it seems to do the job.

CarnalSigh

I'm sorry zoom, but I have to chime on the gaussian blur issue. It is just a wee too much. Once their faces start to look like porcelain, ya might wanna back off a bit. Great shots tho. I admire your photography skills.

Hary

CarnalSigh wrote:

I'm sorry zoom, but I have to chime on the gaussian blur issue. It is just a wee too much. Once their faces start to look like porcelain, ya might wanna back off a bit. Great shots tho. I admire your photography skills.

yeah, the man looks like a doll....
One more thing - I read in that in portraits its not good to put two heads/faces directly above/under one another.
So #1 is perfect #2 not so perfect.

Thanks!