First ever portrait attempt! C&C + Tips wanted

Atomic Pineapple

Ok so I started a photography course two weeks ago.

And after the basics we were tasked with getting our own portrait shot this week using available light/natural light from a window.

Due to the dull weather today is the first chance I got to shoot a few pics.

So I'm wondering if people would give me some advice on what they came out like and tips and hints to improve the photo.

Due to an unwilling subject, I only got a few photos and heres the two that I like best.

1)


2)


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

smash

You could smooth out the skin, hide blemishes and whiten the teeth anyway. They're also a bit grainy in the shadows on the neck.

Atomic Pineapple

steve06 wrote: »

You could smooth out the skin, hide blemishes and whiten the teeth anyway. They're also a bit grainy in the shadows on the neck.

any links to decent tutorials to do that? I tried to smooth the skin but it didn't really work.

Quackles

Ah, unwilling models, is there any other kind? Oh yeah, there are - my models are willing but won't sit still and eat the backdrops

If you could get her to look at the camera, though, it'd work out so much better for you.. Maybe pull back from her a bit? Or photograph her doing something, might take the self conscious aspect out of it for her.

smash

draffodx wrote: »

any links to decent tutorials to do that? I tried to smooth the skin but it didn't really work.

you'll find hundreds of them on youtube, the patch and clone tools are your friends!

melekalikimaka

wb is a smidge off too i thinks

Atomic Pineapple

melekalikimaka wrote: »

wb is a smidge off too i thinks

That might be something to do with pix.ie is it? they look much better offline on the laptop then uploaded to pix.

Here's another attempt and it looks really washed out when uploaded compared to the file on my laptop, or am I just imagining it?

melekalikimaka

check what colourspace your saving to. srgb is what ya want i think for pix.ie. seems the uploader strips the meta regarding the colour space and sets its own srgb so if you have it set to adobe, the colours and contrast will tilt slightly due to gamut sizes differeing...

in other words save it to the space that pix sets and colours should be purrrrrrr fect

Atomic Pineapple

melekalikimaka wrote: »

check what colourspace your saving to. srgb is what ya want i think for pix.ie. seems the uploader strips the meta regarding the colour space and sets its own srgb so if you have it set to adobe, the colours and contrast will tilt slightly due to gamut sizes differeing...

in other words save it to the space that pix sets and colours should be purrrrrrr fect

argh, that hurt my brain!

When I go file save as it shows colour as ICC Profile: Adobe RGB (1998)

see pic



Do I click this off or is colour space somewhere completely different?

EDIT: Also white balance was set to flash/daylight.

.Longshanks.

What software are you using?
In CS3 i set if from the drop down edit menu.....

Adobe RGB is different from sRGB

Atomic Pineapple

Longshanks100 wrote: »

What software are you using?
In CS3 i set if from the drop down edit menu.....

Adobe RGB is different from sRGB

This what I'm looking for?

.Longshanks.

This is where i do it Edit --> Assign Profile --> working profile to sRGB

Edit - your screen shot above says your working profile is now sRGB (in 2nd box). That should be you sorted

AnCatDubh

Ok, disclaimer first - all of the following is purely an opinion and take from it what you can. Don't take it as gospel. There are way many others about the place who are way better capable of comment on some of the aspects that I am seeing. All of the following is hoping to be constructive. So with that been said here ya go;

Of what you have posted i'm liking #2. I'm scratching my head here for a few minutes trying to figure out why. The first rule of portraits is to focus on the eyes. Bingo, #2 is the one of the 3 posted that the eyes are both clear and in focus. Don't worry, in time you'll figure out that you can break that rule when you move to creative portraits. How and ever it's not a bad rule as iirc when someone looks at themselves in a portrait they look at the eyes, face, rest of package (this has foundation in research somewhere that I can't remember). So I think that's why i'm being drawn to it.

Also in #2, the expression is more natural. #1 looks to me like your model was trying not to smile / or to hold back a smile - the chin is slightly stretched. Ok, I know you can't actually stretch your chin but it looks as if it wasn't resting comfortably on the line which one would expect.

Shadows under the chin - again from a classic portrait perspective, shadows are to be avoided at all costs - the reason being that they are the most unflattering thing that you will come across. Usually the shadow traps are under the chin, the eye sockets, and possibly the lower portion of the face depending on your light source. So what you have to do is fill in those shadows. A reflector is needed here. If you don't have one, then improvise - a white sheet of paper, or plastic sheet. Varying the colours will give you different effects - a gold reflector for instance will give your model a real warm glow to their portrait which is very pleasing a bit like fake tan only actually nice. An issue of Amateur Photographer a week or so ago were giving away silver reflectors for free with the magazine (about €3/4) - if you could source one of these perhaps. Anyway generally working with reflectors you are bouncing the available light back up onto the subject in order to remove the shadow. Personally, I'd suggest something like that for your model for under the chin. Also there are some shadows under the glasses which this may take care of.

The lighting is very harsh to my eye on your subject. I honestly would have taken a look at it and thought that it was a cameras in built flash not diffused and straight on (well the effect rather than the angle). I'm a little surprised by this as if your exif info is correct, then you were taking your shots at about 4:30pm so the available should have been weaker than that (I would have expected). It may be that your model has very pale and quite reflective skin. Have you anything available that might diffuse the light - something like a net curtain in front of the windows could work wonders. The balance of light is just not appealing to me and I think you may need to work on it. I wonder is there a slight bit of overexposure going on. There is nothing that the histogram is saying is completely burnt out but i just wonder would it be better if the distribution of light was a little bit back from the right hand side.

ISO / Aperture and Shutter Speed - The photographic triangle according to peterson (if you've read the book). You have an interesting combination (again from what you exif tells me). ISO 800, aperture f5.6, and shutter speed of 1/4000. Classic portrait aperture is probably about f11 - some may say f9. Having said that I personally like the in focus and bokeh created by f5.6 so heck that looks good to me (but you may wish to try others). ISO 800 is going to give you a grainy texture - nothing extreme (well, depends on your camera and its capability). This can be great for a moody creative feel but may not be the best when it comes to what your model might expect - it can give a 'dirty' look to what otherwise could be a perfect skin tone. Higher ISO's can be great particularly in black and white conversions. Done correctly and it can instil mood in your composition. Anyhow something to think about. You have loads of scope to play with it though because look at your shutter speed at 1/4000 - holy cow, but you'd stop the space shuttle in its tracks with that one never mind a stationary model You are likely to be able to reduce the ISO back to 100 or 200 and still have a really fast shutter speed. If you have up'd your aperture value (closed the aperture) this will impact on your shutter speed too.

A picky wee thing with the crop that you've used which in #1 and #2 is the necklack is cropped out of the frame which just leaves that aspect sort of unfinished (seeing both sides of the chain but missing the feature).

In #2 i'd also raise the chin just a tiny bit. Your model is in a natural pose and I wouldn't want to upset that too much but if you could raise her chin a tinchy winchy bit, I think it would improve a little too.

Focus - they all don't appear tack sharp. This is another 'rule' that you need to get to grips with before your begin breaking it. #2 I think is the best (again probably why I personally would have chosen it). What kind of focusing did you use - manual or automatic. Next question - Did you use a tripod? In a formal portrait situation - a tripod is very useful. Although having said that with the shutter speed you were using, you would have to have been falling from a height to incur motion blur. Slightly confused about that one

Overall, not a bad first attempt. Hope the above is useful.

Cheers.

Atomic Pineapple

Thanks AnCatDubh

Great post and some VERY helpful tips.

I was going by the lecturers settings of shutter speed 1/80, aperture 5.6, iso 400 - 800.

I turned the iso down to 200 for the third pic.

They were taken around half 4 yesterday evening and the sun was VERY bright so thats why it is possibly so harsh, I also had to put the shutter speed up to 1/4000 as at 1/80 the picture was just light. The camera has a scale type thing that suggested 1/4000 for the pic.

Today its not so bright here, so may be a better option to take the pics?

I had the tri pod set up but didn't use it. Would it be much better to use?

I wont be able to get a reflector in time for tomorrow but I'll keep a look out for one for the future.

Atomic Pineapple

ok gave it another try today.

opposite today, the light is very dull coming in the window!

Anyway heres the pic I decided I liked the best and so worked on it.

First pic is unedited except for a crop.

Second pic is edited, I tried to lighten it up, remove blemishes, smooth skin and whiten teeth.

shot at iso 200, white balance as flash, shutter speed 1/80, and F5 (or around it)

Unedited)



edited)



Is my editing actually an improvement at all?

AnCatDubh

dont mean to hog the thread but here's a couple of quickies (again all only an opinion - feel free to disregard);

the more dim light that you experienced today has been more challenging / darker end product - varying the photographic triangle elements described earlier will allow you to improve your overall brightness/exposure.

the noise is quite noticeable. It will be interesting to see what your tutor thinks of it.

I would prefer the lighting levels in #2 of the original post tbh - it is just brighter. The image has a little more zest to it.

silly question but what crop ratio are you using? it looks free hand crop which won't do you any favours when you go to print - you'd need to crop using a ratio of the intended print size 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, etc...

Of your second post the processed one is better as you've improved the lighting and worked a little on blemishes / etc... BUT the cleaning of the blemishes has left blurring imho of the face so you've ended up with leaving the eyes sharpened but blurring around the face. Just feel that this leaves an overall unnatural feel to it.

Personally, I'd go back to the first image of the second set and have a go with the levels - clipping the highlights and shadows to give a more contrasty / punchy type of image.

also I think the original still is a little 'soft' in the focus department, so i'd suggest to run a little unsharp filter on it (which sounds like it is getting softer but trust me it will sharpen).

The sample below (I trust you won't mind my attempt) shows your first, your adjusted, and your first with levels adjustment and a little unsharp applied.



Now having shown that, it kinda gets away from the original idea of using natural light only (all that pp that i'm recommending )

one other thing, if you were using natural light, then why for your white balance did you select a flash based setting???

Again, all the above only an opinion. Hope its useful and apologies in advance for butchering your image - which by the way is on a non colour corrected screen so it might look like muck on your screen .

Atomic Pineapple

Yes the noise is very noticeable and is really annoying me.

Yeh I just used cropping by hand, must look into crop ratios, never printed a photo before so its not something I was aware of, thanks for pointing it out.

I followed a tutorial on youtube to smooth the skin and leave the eyes focused, I must have overdone the smoothing of the skin leaving it look unatural, more practice needed there.

White balance was set to flash as recommended by the lecturer, flash and daylight are exactly the same according to him. Changing from flash to daylight seemed to give the exact same picture.

I wont have time to take more shots so I reckon if I have a go at editing that last shot again following your tips and print that and print the second one from the first set and bring them in would be my best bet?