Hi, Jess,

I took a look at your engagement photos. I agree that portraits are
tricky, and I don't claim to be an expert by any means...but, since
you asked, here are my two cents:

I think you did a good job capturing the personalities of the couple.
To me, that is one of the hardest things. There is a creativity in
your shots, too - placement of the subjects, unusual backgrounds, etc.

As far as the mechanics - First of all, what editing program do you
use? I use PSE5, so my comments may not apply with other programs.

I copied the first shot (with the shadow on the guy's face) and the
first thing I noticed was that it was in Grayscale rather than RGB
mode, so many of the editing tools would not work until I converted it
back to RGB. I assume you converted the photo to B&W. When I convert
to B&W, I leave it in RGB, because the editing program allows for more
adjustments. To lighten the shadow I would suggest selecting just the
part you want to change, then adjust with one of the lighting tools
(i.e., Brightness & Contrast, Shadows & Highlights, or Levels). When
I edit a portrait, I almost always try Smart Blur on it, which softens
the facial features. Sometimes I even try Filter>Distort>Diffuse Glow
which gives a similar result to using a "real" diffuser filter.

In your second shot (the desaturated one) the skin tones look
unnatural to me. Did you use a Mask? I think it's a good idea with
this shot, if you could convert the columns(?) to B&W and work toward
more natural skin tones. Using a Mask would be the way I would go
because it allows you to to vary the saturation levels as you "paint".

You mentioned that the third photo was unedited, so I assume you
intend to straighten the building (church?) in the background. You
might want to try converting the subjects to B&W, reducing the
saturation of the background a tad, and blurring the background a bit.
If this is church where they will be married, this will be a real keeper!

One last thing, their expressions are so good in the first shot, you
might want to do a second version with a tight crop once you get rid
of that shadow.

Didn't mean to ramble so, but I hope my comments help.

Pat Hemenway
aka mongadrive

-- In Better_Digital_Photography@yahoogroups.com, "Jessica"
<december_roses@...> wrote:
>
> Hey y'all.
>
> I just added 3 photos to the New Photos album. They're my cousin's
> engagement photos I took about a week ago. I'd really like to hear your
> comments and suggestions since I'm new at the whole portrait thing and
> this is the first time I've ever done engagement photos. The first one
> I know the face of the guy was dark, and I tried lightening it, but it
> just kept looking bad. If anyone can help me out and then tell me how
> you did it, I'd appreciate it. In the second one I tried something a
> little different than I normally do. I did a saturation layer over the
> color layer and then just desaturated until a little color showed. The
> third one is completely unedited.
>
> Thanks a bunch!
> ~Jess~
>