Portrait My Grand-Daughter

[gennarof]

Kaisee_E.jpgThis my first attempt at a portrait. She if 4 yrs old at the time of this photo (last year) and is of fair complexion (hence the porcelin like skin tone). Other then darkening the background I really didn't do to much to the image other then applying some minor touch up with the Nik filter for portraits and skin tone. I have seen other portraits that render skin tone more toward the side of a tan like complexion but haven't yet been able to achieve that effect.

When the image is rendered in PS it doesn't appear to have a skin tone so much on the pinkish side as the jpg rendering.
I would appreciate some Constructive Comments.

Thank you.

Below is the Before Image as suggested

[amica999]

Lovely little girl and nice portrait, too

[LQQKER]

I like your portrait as well, cute child. Seeing the original image (before) would make it more logical to comment on your work. Knowing what you started with always helps, then perhaps you could see some critiques along with example ideas.

[aartist]

Soften the left side outline around the waist area bow.
Sharpen her blue irises & gold ear rings a touch to make them gem like.
Beautiful Girl, Love the portrait!

[gennarof]

Originally Posted by LQQKER

I like your portrait as well, cute child. Seeing the original image (before) would make it more logical to comment on your work. Knowing what you started with always helps, then perhaps you could see some critiques along with example ideas.

LQQker.
Thank you for the suggestion. I have added the before Image. I appreciate your remark.

[LQQKER]

Ok . . . after seeing the original image, I have a few suggestions.

If you really wanted to keep that tilt of the original image, I would have kept it a head and neck portrait, otherwise the lean is unnatural (again, unless that was your original intent). Being able to see a portion of existing horizonal edges adds to the image lean, which is a distraction. In my opinion however, I think it would have been better to crop and straighten the image and/or knock out the subject and create a new background (although the original bg is adequate). To compensate for the crop and straightening you would no doubt have to add a few inches of canvas to the image, giving more space on the subjects left side. At this point you cold possibly create a fading vignette to compensate for the image loss or be artistic/clone and add to the lost part.

The complexion of the childs skin does not require that much work and touch up (unless that was what you had in mind). My thoughts tell me the softening of the facial area and overall image is well over the top of what is actually necessary (if necessary at all). I have Nik Efex Pro 3.0 Complete as well, which is a time saver but you use it sparingly. What you might consider (if you have this version) is to use the Pro contrast filter 65% opacity, dynamic skin softner at about 50% opacity and you could have some quick results with minimal masking. This is an attractive pose and has endless possibilities, so there are many ways to go about this but blurring does not seem the direction in my opinion, minimal D&B would have been fine. Keep in mind, this is just one persons opinion.

[aartist]

Now that I've seen the original, I love what you did even more!

[Cupcake]

You could also try some kind of a high Key Picture.
A soft and sweet look.

Here is an idea.

[gennarof]

LQQKer

Thank You So Much for the Feed back. It is helpful to get different perspectives.

[gennarof]

Thank you all for your feed back. After carefull review and a continued a learning curve I decided to incorporate a few suggestions and try my hand at something new (new for me). Same photo attached. I would really appreciate some feed back.

Thank you all again.

[Cupcake]

I like it.
Good work.

[tfshuffle]

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/att...1&d=1267513766 i hope you don't mind me haveing a go at this but i'm new here and loveing so many beautiful pics your granddaughter is beautiful

[Lamouzinga]

Lovely portrait! Great work, like the softness in the before photo - although a little too 'warm' tones for me, it has a nice presence.