First Time Seriously Shooting Portraits

[skulkingghost]

Hey Guys,
I have done my fair bit of shooting, but this is my first real attempt at shooting portraits. I took a friend out today and her and I went around shooting portraits. All told I shot about 240 pictures, about 25 of them I deemed good enough to post process. Let me know what you think. I used a lightroom (initial adjustments) --> Photoshop CS4 (adjustment layers / cloning) --> portraiture (skin smoothing, etc) --->lightroom (final touchup) workflow.

Ill post my favorites here and at the bottom a link to the whole shoot.

Favorites:
Against The Wall
Looking Up
Against The Wall 2
Looking Back


Rest of The Shoot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/d...ets/72157614086753223/


All pictures shot with my:
Rebel Xti
Full Manual
28-200 F3.5-? lens

 

[jpeyton]

Different people have different styles, but I personally like sharp portraits. Not cut-your-skin sharp (where you can see every little pore), but the beauty 'haze' or 'glow' that you've added to your portraits is not my thing.

Ignoring that, out of the four you posted, the 2nd is my favorite. Lighting/shadows/makeup make it look like she has unsightly bags under her eyes in the 1st and 3rd shots (in addition to the wrinkles on her forehead in the 3rd shot). Her hair in the 4th is a bit frazzled, and her wardrobe and pose in that shot make her look barrel-chested.

 

[Billb2]

Leave more space above the heads.
And you need better lighting. To much shadow.

 

[takeru]

most of your pics are way too smoothed out for me, you lost a lot of finer details.

1 - tone down the eye shadow
2 - i would have preferred this sharper. all detail is lost on her clothes
3 - forehead wrinkles, hair everywhere, unnatural open mouth? (she looks like she's yawning)
4 - her composure seems off. stance is awkward.

 

[andylawcc]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Different people have different styles, but I personally like sharp portraits. Not cut-your-skin sharp (where you can see every little pore), but the beauty 'haze' or 'glow' that you've added to your portraits is not my thing.

this. While I do like creamy texture, your hard work in post processing may have made her too un-natural.

 

[kyzen]

Originally posted by: andylawcc

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Different people have different styles, but I personally like sharp portraits. Not cut-your-skin sharp (where you can see every little pore), but the beauty 'haze' or 'glow' that you've added to your portraits is not my thing.

this. While I do like creamy texture, your hard work in post processing may have made her too un-natural.

Thirded. I liked the look in the first pic I saw, but then seeing it used in every other pic got tiresome.

Think about it this way:

If you were buying portraits from somebody, would you want the artsy blur thing as an option? Yeah, probably. Would you want it on every print, with no option for a more traditional/sharp image? Probably not.

 

[Koing]

Too much PP for me but the first ones cool.

Koing

 

[skulkingghost]

Originally posted by: kyzen

Originally posted by: andylawcc

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Different people have different styles, but I personally like sharp portraits. Not cut-your-skin sharp (where you can see every little pore), but the beauty 'haze' or 'glow' that you've added to your portraits is not my thing.

this. While I do like creamy texture, your hard work in post processing may have made her too un-natural.

Thirded. I liked the look in the first pic I saw, but then seeing it used in every other pic got tiresome.

Think about it this way:

If you were buying portraits from somebody, would you want the artsy blur thing as an option? Yeah, probably. Would you want it on every print, with no option for a more traditional/sharp image? Probably not.

Makes sense,
I have a bunch non prost processed, but I didnt post them because I did not think they would be very passable, perhaps Ill do some that arent so airbrushed and post them up later. Its my first time using Portraiture too, so perhaps I overdid it a bit.

 

[Resnik]

skulkingghost -

Couple of things -

1. Scene composition was not good . Why? water tank (out of focus or not) is kinda catching the eyes rather than the actual subject. check the rule of third

I will concentrate on scene composition first rather than relying on post processing. Try eliminate the water tank.

2. Dress color of the model. Have contrast color with the background.

3. Last picture was kinda good as there no other things to compare the subject.

Post processing :

when you do skin smoothing, basically a pixel approximation took out the detail. since you left the background untouched it look more like the out of focus effect rather than acheiving what you want. You lost so much details. To avoid this, make two copies of this original layer, apply sharp filter on the first one and apply poraiture filter on top layer. Erase the top layer at eyes, nose, lips and other details. so that the bottom one will be visible. see the result.

Let me know if I make sense.

 

[jpeyton]

Also, if you're using the 28-200mm, I'd keep it dialed in between 150mm-200mm if possible. It's not a fast aperture lens, so a longer focal length would do the best job of creating the thin DOF you want for a portrait.

 

[angry hampster]

They look like plastic aliens. Shoot at the long end of your zoom. Use off-camera flash if possible (it's actually cheap!)

 

[skulkingghost]

Originally posted by: Resnik
skulkingghost -

Couple of things -

1. Scene composition was not good . Why? water tank (out of focus or not) is kinda catching the eyes rather than the actual subject. check the rule of third

I will concentrate on scene composition first rather than relying on post processing. Try eliminate the water tank.

2. Dress color of the model. Have contrast color with the background.

3. Last picture was kinda good as there no other things to compare the subject.

Post processing :

when you do skin smoothing, basically a pixel approximation took out the detail. since you left the background untouched it look more like the out of focus effect rather than acheiving what you want. You lost so much details. To avoid this, make two copies of this original layer, apply sharp filter on the first one and apply poraiture filter on top layer. Erase the top layer at eyes, nose, lips and other details. so that the bottom one will be visible. see the result.

Let me know if I make sense.

Awesome advice, thank yous o much, I am going to repostprocess a bunch of these tonight taking your advice, thank you!

 

[Deadtrees]

Did you take pictures of real human or a mannequin?

 

[hcarlson]

Sorry these look soft/OOF. You need a better lens if you want to do some good portrait work. The 28-200mm is not great.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: hcarlson
Sorry these look soft/OOF. You need a better lens if you want to do some good portrait work. The 28-200mm is not great.

Like the old Nikon F105/2.5. It made everything good.
And see this.

 

[ghostman]

Originally posted by: Billb2

Originally posted by: hcarlson
Sorry these look soft/OOF. You need a better lens if you want to do some good portrait work. The 28-200mm is not great.

Like the old Nikon F105/2.5. It made everything good.
And see this.

Not to hijack the thread, but I've always been a little confused about how much space should be left above the head. I typically position the subject's eyes at one of the top two points where the "thirds" intersect (ie. the top two crosses of a hash sign #) so as not to center the subject. I know it's not a hard and fast rule, but when should more space be left above the head?

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: ghostman
I typically position the subject's eyes at one of the top two points where the "thirds" intersect (ie. the top two crosses of a hash sign #) so as not to center the subject. I know it's not a hard and fast rule, but when should more space be left above the head?

Pretty much all all the time. It's like leaving room in front of things that are moving.
It just looks funny if you don't do it.
Maybe it's because when you look someone in the eye, half of what you see is above their eyes, even though all of the rest of them is below.

Try some of your shots as you said you do, then with the eyes below the center of the frame.

 

[finbarqs]

yeah OOF... I think it's because his focal point is off. Seems like he aimed behind the subject rather than at the subject (or the AI servo missed it). I'd put it on Spot AF, and point straight at the eyes. Portraits usually require the eyes to be in focus.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

You've got a lot of good advice here already.

The skin smoothing was overdone. Great glamor photography is a balance between hiding the natural blemishes of your subject while still making the person look real and unprocessed. You're completely fooling your audience into thinking your subject REALLY looks that way in real life. You're not going to do this by blurring out too much skin texture and softening the photo up too much.

The clothes and background contrast thing is something to keep in mind. I really liked the picture of the girl in the red jacket and the white ladder and background. Very striking. Wish you would have explored those shots more.

Try and find subjects that are uncomplicated. Brick wall is good. White wall is good. The natural foliage in your shots was too busy.

You're lucky to have such a good looking subject