A family portrait session

A family portrait session · Posted by sandpiper6, 12-31-2006, 02:09 AM

We photographed this amazingly nice and beautiful family yesterday. They all got together to celebrate the mom's 80th birthday. While we were there, we found a cute couple/wedding lead (one of the grandchildren). I'm posting a quick thank you card I'll print out of the family followed by a collage of the cute couple.

Any feedback? These were taken with the *ist-D, 28-70mm lens. 2 of the pictures in the collage were taken with the K100D, 18-55mm lens. I have a new 19" widescreen LCD monitor that I am having trouble calibrating. I've ordered Spyder2 Express due to arrive next week. In the meantime, feedback on the color and/or design or even composition is appreciated. Thank you.

Joe took all the photos with the *ist-D. I took a couple of photos with my K100D. I was in the assistant role at this session.

Faith

**roentarre** · 12-31-2006, 02:49 AM

Sure they are professional work, great editing and presentation. Nice natural skin tone with great expressions for both pics.

Thanks for some examples of pro work.

roscot · 12-31-2006, 05:21 AM

Faith,
Beautiful compositions and collages. The color balance looks a bit on the blue/cyan side to me. But my laptop lcd is not calibrated either, so take with a grain.

-Alan

Edit:
Just rechecked on my CRT. Definitely a slight Cyan tint to the color balance.

Tom Lusk · 12-31-2006, 06:25 AM

getting a slight greenish tint on the fellow's face, but that could be my monitor.

The group shot is not coming across very sharp, either from re-sizing or, again, it's just me.

*Jun Park* · 12-31-2006, 06:50 AM

The collage of 5 pics works great! I especially like how the pics alternate between the couple (show his face in one and her face in the other); brings balance to the whole arrangement.

I think you've done a great job of showing us that professional photographers provide their clients with an artistic vision as well as technical accuracy.

sandpiper6 · 12-31-2006, 09:51 AM

Thanks to all of you for your replies. Thanks for the comments on color. I will most definitely wait to present their work until after I get the color management software to fix this monitor.

Faith

sandpiper6 · 12-31-2006, 11:40 AM

Where are you seeing the green/cyan/blue casts in his face? I went back in to the layers master copy of the collage and went to hue/saturation. For each image, I moved the cyan, the blue and the green sliders from all the up to all the way down and saw zero changes to the faces in any of the 5 images. His shirt has a lot of cyan/green, but that is the color of his shirt. What am I missing? or misunderstanding?

Thanks for the input!

Faith

Tom Lusk · 12-31-2006, 01:29 PM

a greenish tinge or cast on Luka's right cheek (just to the left of his mouth) on the main duet photo, and on his left cheek (same basic area) in the duet shot upper right.

If I'm the only one that sees it, it must be my monitor...

sandpiper6 · 12-31-2006, 02:23 PM

I've been working on it some more. There are no green pixels in the face to desaturate, but I went in and changed the background to black and toned down the greens/cyans in his shirt to see if that helps. Maybe matching the background to his shirt brought out/emphasized that color too much, leaving it imbalanced.

See if this works any better...

Faith

**roentarre** · 12-31-2006, 02:29 PM

Yes... Since Tom had mentioned it, there was a bit of green/cyan hue to his right cheek. Not strong.

The whole shot is a harmony but under scrutiny, colour might have been slightly off somewhere. I like the skin tone for the grandma and majority of people in the shot. That little boy has a very pale skin while Lucas has a slight unnatural skin tone by comparison...

Just my gut feeling. Maybe this is the result of group hysteria by those of us trying to be photocritic?? (no offence intended)

sandpiper6 · 01-01-2007, 11:03 PM

Originally Posted by roentarre

Yes... Since Tom had mentioned it, there was a bit of green/cyan hue to his right cheek. Not strong.

The whole shot is a harmony but under scrutiny, colour might have been slightly off somewhere. I like the skin tone for the grandma and majority of people in the shot. That little boy has a very pale skin while Lucas has a slight unnatural skin tone by comparison...

Just my gut feeling. Maybe this is the result of group hysteria by those of us trying to be photocritic?? (no offence intended)

I thought the previous comments were about the couple in the collage. The difference in the boy next to him in the family grouping is greatly attributed to a difference in nationality. I'm not really sure why he is in the family photo now that I know (after the fact) that he is a boyfriend or fiance to one of the granddaughters. He must be real special.

My monitor calibration kit should arrive today or tomorrow. Can't wait to get this fixed!

Faith