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Sweet 16 portrait

Ruben Alfu

New member
She is my niece and my sister asked me to do her a sweet 16 portrait at the last minute because the oficial photographer had a little mishap on the road. I had to improvise this at home in 15 minutes, I wish we have the chance to do something more special, but if not, do you think this is decent enough, how can this be improved?




_MG_2495.jpg





Thanks in advance,

Ruben
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
She is my niece and my sister asked me to do her a sweet 16 portrait at the last minute because the oficial photographer had a little mishap on the road. I had to improvise this at home in 15 minutes, I wish we have the chance to do something more special, but if not, do you think this is decent enough, how can this be improved?




_MG_2495.jpg



Ruben,

A delightful and engaging young lady! You've done her proud! Really is fine as is!

However, one can explore new presentations. I'd consider making her lips match the dress and also perhaps, just add a curves layer, unaltered and blend to multiply and decrease to about 0.5 to 2% or so to build up the density. Then mask the dress as that's bold already!

Asher
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
Ruben,

...I'd consider making her lips match the dress ...

Asher


Please don't!:)

Lovely picture, though her skins a bit smooth for my taste. Not sure if that processing or makeup!

The only real comment is that I think the coours could do with a bit of contrast - perhaps the background is too simiar to the skin tone and derss in partinculr.

Just a couple of nit pics. You did a good job.

Mike
 
Hi Ruben

I'm sure she'll be happy wth it.

I wonder whether it might help to hold back the flare on her lower lip a touch.
 

James Roberts

New member
A very nice portrait under the circumstances--there's not much I'd change about the capture (though I would have selected a different colour background if I could have)!

Some tips if you want to make this better, especially to print it at any size:

1) fix the skin balance and overall white point / black point by reducing the saturation (particularly red / magenta) saturation.

There are traditional ways to do this, but one way to get you there quickly would be to pick the brightest part of the image (her teeth) and the darkest part (the shadows under her chin) and make sure they're neutral--7/7/7 for the shadows and about 242/242/242 for the teeth. Then check the skin balance...

2) Use Photoshop's "replace colour" command to shift the background out of a competing red into something less problematic but still likely--like an orange. With the reduced saturation, that will give you some printable separation. Do this on a separate layer so you can replace any parts of the skin that's affected by "erasing" it away.

3) As Asher said, you also might want to change the overall density and contrast of her skin to make it more "film-like" (think Portra). If you don't know how to do this with curves and channel operations, something like AlienSkin Exposure, on a separate layer and dialled back to about 50% transparency in PS, will get you there :)
 

Ruben Alfu

New member
Asher, Mike, Murray and James,

I'm taking note of each of your comments, thanks so much! I see the bg and the contrast are the two main issues to consider.

James, I'll go through each of your wonderful tips, thanks a lot for all the details, that's priceless!


Best regards,

Ruben
 

Ruben Alfu

New member
Ok, here's a new rendition following the comments posted above. I see a significant improvement, I'm way happier with this!

Anyway, the door is still open for any further C&C.

Thanks again folks!

Regards,

Ruben




_MG_2495_flat1.jpg






PD, just noticed a little blemish by the lower left corner, have to fix that.
 
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