Requesting my first critiqe on this forum

[DigitalDC]

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4072/...76f8031e_o.jpg

Photoshopped on a color calibrated laptop (eek!) using Eye One Display 2. Colors and brightness look a bit off on uncalibrated monitors even though other pics by other people still look somewhat normal on this particular bad monitor i'm using at a public terminal.

Defiantely would appreciate anything anyone has to offer up, but mostly interested in the skin tone looking decent as well as good light/dark balance just to make sure what i'm seeing on my monitor is translating well to others.

[Overdoze]

about tones: Sky has nice blue tone, vignette works in upper half of picture, skin is mainly ok, but theres some strange red tint on the nose, forehead and arm (arm red propably comes from artificial vignette). Have you tried to reduce red bit more? (eye one 2 is nice calibration device btw)

about the picture: Cute girl, there is a huge amount of distraction on background, would love to see more blurry background. Nice bokeh with huge aperture usually makes people "pop" out from picture, could work on this one too. (except with 22mm and f6.3 really hard to archieve) Your flash is a bit too cold, warming gel for flash would balance the lightsources nicely.

I´m always interested about setup and specs in the pictures.
Your exif says: Rebel XS (22mm/f6.3, 1/250) aand light setup setting sun as main light and what kind of flashgun did you use as kicker?(is that right term? meaning light behind the model)

[DigitalDC]

thanks for all the detailed help. now in your opinion should i mask the red-desaturation? or should i just apply the de-redding to the whole image?

I will try some subtle artificial bokeh on the background if i feel it comes out realistic looking.

I used a nikon SB-25 flash shooting through a white umbrella which was about 45degrees camera right. I do own gels, but as of yet haven't really used them yet. The photo was taken as the sun was setting but honestly i figured i'd just get away with no one noticing the flash wasn't gelled lol.

again thx for the help, i'll post up a subtle redo soon.

[DigitalDC]

http://i43.tinypic.com/rkaj9k.jpg

Is that any better Overdoze? Went subtle on lowering the red saturation, do you think it needs to be less red still?