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09-09-2009, 05:37 PM   #1
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Senior Pictures

Here are two poses of my daughter. wife wanted me to shoot her senior pictures so I am giving it the old college try. Some feedback on these two poses and processing. Used ACDSee Pro 3 to process.





09-09-2009, 05:44 PM   #2
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Scott, I prefer senior photos where the subject is looking at the camera, just my preference. But I do like the skintones in the first shot. Hope this helps.
09-09-2009, 09:00 PM   #3
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LOL, I'm still getting used to Americanese, in England, senior pictures would have meant shots of a couple of old duffers.

I prefer the second shot Scott, her expression is more natural looking, first one looks a bit forced. She looks like she is leaning to the right a bit in the second one, but if you straighten it a little it will have a not so nice affect on the tree on the left of the frame. It also looks a little bit flat.
I don't know if it's due to resizing for posting but they do look a little oversharpened.
09-10-2009, 05:37 AM   #4
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Was the first shot oversharpened or scanned at low res? It looks like it's losing resolution on my screen.

Nice poses. I would try an even larger aperture to blur the background even more.

Fill flash on number 2? It cost you the warm, outdoor lighting and "whited" out the light a bit. I rarely use flash or strobes outdoors, preferring to use reflectors and natural light only, especially gold reflectors. I think it makes the shot more natural when only existing light is used.

09-10-2009, 06:23 AM   #5
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Scott, I'd have to agree the sharpening was overdone in #1 but I do like the colour rendition better. Pose is more engaging in #2. Do consider opening aperture up a little more to isolate her from the slightly distracting background.

Otherwise nice shots of her.
09-10-2009, 06:45 AM   #6
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nice shots. I would love to see them SOOC to compare. I'm pretty new to all this, especially Post Processing, but my first thought was they looked over sharpened.
Beautiful girl BTW....
09-10-2009, 05:35 PM   #7
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thanks everyone. still learning the software and am very inconsistent. first shot saved jpg right from DNG file this resulted in a low res shot. Second saved as Tiff then jpg, better results.
An admitted over sharpener, so I will cut back some.
Fill flash used on both shots, camera's built in flash.
Will try to open up the lens. used 50mm f2.0 so I have room to open it up.
Damn Brit if only we could get the girl to stand straight. She is tall 5' 8" , and she always slumps her shoulders in an attempt to hide the height.
Thanks BethC, a proud dad also thinks she is beautiful.
here are the originals I worked from.





09-10-2009, 09:33 PM   #8
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One point about sharpening Scott, for printing purposes, it is good to oversharpen a little, if you're printing on canvas, you can oversharpen more so.
09-12-2009, 11:12 AM   #9
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Agreed on the oversharpening. The poses look a bit forced, you're her dad, I'm sure you know how to make her laugh. Get her to laugh, then take the picture as the smile comes across her face. Also, having her shoulders straight on to the camera is not flattering, but you did a good job of having her turn her body.

I'd also open the lens up to f/2.0, and watch what the background is doing directly behind her head. We see in 3-D, but the camera can't show anything but 2-D, so having the sky and bits of limbs/leaves intersecting over her head (versus putting her in front of the tree itself and blurring it for a solid green background) competes subconsciously for viewer's attention.

Edit: I'd try to shoot in camera to over-expose just a tad (get the histogram over to the right side) to help retain skin tone and detail. At wider apertures, you should be able to skip the fill flash and just arrange your scene so she is the brightest/best lit, and against a darker background.

Also, don't be afraid to try a true candid shot. Just walk around your yard/park/wherever this was taken and shoot a whole bunch of frames. You can always delete the bad ones once you are home, and you can usually get a better image of the person versus something posed, especially with your close relationship with her.
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