Easter Portrait of my daughters - Feel free to edit

[theantiquetiger]

Once again, I still cannot get the portraits of my daughters that I want. I cannot explain what I am looking for, I will just know when I get it one day. Its like the cobbler's kids never have shoes!!!

It doesn't help when my wife thinks I can get a portrait in 3 minutes, just point and shoot, with out dragging out umbrellas, etc.

Link to Dropbox tif file https://www.dropbox.com/s/dkwen66778...maddy.TIF?dl=0

maddymorganeaster2015 by Theantiquetiger, on Flickr

[Runmonty]

It doesn't help when my wife thinks I can get a portrait in 3 minutes, just point and shoot, with out dragging out umbrellas, etc

Ha Ha. I feel like this when I go with the family and I wish to take photos. They think stopping for 20 secs is long enough to aim focus & shoot.

I think you did a good job. I had a quick play too. I didn't get the strength of pink shown above. From the original the dress looked more white. If you like it I can talk you through the stages of this edit.

[theantiquetiger]

From the original the dress looked more white. If you like it I can talk you through the stages of this edit.

The dress is pink but I lost it in the image, so I lightly painted it back in with Lightroom.

My least favorite part of my image above is my older daughter's eyes. She has dark brown eyes and they just seem to make her face dark.

[Runmonty]

Pink dress

[theantiquetiger]

Thanks Run!!! I like the background but Maddy's face looks funny (standing).

There really isn't much wrong with my image above, but it is just not what I am looking for. Morgan looks great in the image, its just something I cannot put my finger on.

[mbrager]

I'd like to take a shot at it,an opportunity to learn a little more about Photoshop. The TIFF image is pretty sharp, with lots of texture in the yellow dress and good sharpness in the eyes. For me, the problem with the photo is the angle and the background. While it looks like there is a very nice flowering bush and a brick wall behind the girls, it isn't prominent. Mostly we see grass and the flowerbed mulch. I think your camera position is above the girls' heads, tilted downwards. If you were to get down lower to eye or shoulder level, you would include more of the flowers and less grass/mulch. Also, you probably can create bokeh with a larger aperture. That would create better separation and less distraction.
Something like this, with a layer mask and Gaussian blur:

[Marko]

Interesting fixes here - but for me the only issue was the light on the subjects Your blond daughter was standing in better light than her darker haired sister...so much so that the eyes of the darker haired sister are dull and have no sparkle compared to the blond daughter (so sorry I always confuse the names)....and so you had an imbalance from the get go.

Had the darker haired daughter stepped forward the light on both would have been equal and lovely and easy to process.
In the future my advice would be to concentrate first and foremost on the light falling on your subjects so that if you have to 'fix' something....it's easier.
Also, the the darker haired sister should get the better light (in future shots if you have to choose) as she will look less underexposed.
Hope that may help

[Lorey]

Browsing through some older posts here.. haven't looked around here much lately .. so I came across this and I always like an editing challenge I thought I'd give it a shot even if it is 3 months late.

I figure you probably won't like the crop but that's just me. I can't seem to get away from always wanting to get in closer on my subjects.

It's a nice picture of your girls


Chris-girls by Lorey Barnum, on Flickr