Abilene - Back Street Scene Needed

[MicWayWal]

After you work on them please share your favorites.

[rockpics]

Something about the poses and the wall will look very familiar to you, Mike.
I used Canon's portrait picture style on the two with the girl. It makes her skin glowy (too much so?), but does him no favors. It adds a lot of red and he was already sunburned. I desaturated the red in his skin, but I was afraid if I went to far with that I'd make him grey.

[MicWayWal]

Jill,

Nice choice on background.

The major thing I see is you are off on color balance. The picture is way too blue. Blue is the worst color to be off in portraits. It makes people look sick. The red would almost be solved if color balance is close. In fact I added red to the highlights to get to a better white balance, BUT once it is in the camera there is only so much you can do to correct color. Trade offs will show themselves in other areas to be able to bring the color back. Loss of detail in the highlights for example. I adjusted the color by adding 20 units of yellow in midtones & highlights and 20 units of red in highlights. It is not perfect but better toward the way I like warm portraits. Warm is always better than blue. If I am going to err, I err on the side of being too warm.

Picture style choice is second to color balance.
Are you setting up a custom white balance or using a preset?
What are you using as a grey card or white card for custom color balance?

Another minor issue is to get your subject closer to the "front" edge of the stucco and you need to move closer to the wall so the edges of the stucco will be closer to your subject to better frame the image. It also creates more depth in the image. But where you are is okay if you don't crop.

[MicWayWal]

Jill,

I see what you mean about the Portrait Picture style on the girl. I could not pul the white balance back in as easy as the guy. Something is different about it. I never liked the Portrait picture style on the Canon. It is too red and acts weird for me. I use a variation of the Landscape Style. I redifined it and saved it as User Def 1. This gives me a great punch to my colors with a red that I can control.
The parameters are set to:
Sharpness 4
Contrast 0
Saturation -1
Color tone 0
Try it I think you will like it.

I like your images. Good work. Adjust the color and you will have some good images for them.
I love your use of a shallow depth of field for portraits.


See how moving closer to the wall and getting your subject closer to the "front" edge improves the framing?

[rockpics]

You are right. I didn't set a custom white balance. I didn't see the blue till you mentioned it. I realize doing this in camera would be best, but now software is the only remedy. I tried "click white balance" in DDP. It was only slightly warmer than the "Auto" that I used. I tried "Shade" white balance, and in my opinion it is too yellow. So, I opened the "shot settings" frame in Photoshop and used the grey shirt to set the midtones in levels. Here it is

Thank you for your user defined picture style and comments. I'll give it a try

[MicWayWal]

Mine are too yellow. I have not done any adjustments to mine yet. Still trying to decide on poses.
Here is what I do when I don't get a good white balance on location. I open the image in PS. I use two automated processes to set my white balance as it will. I then decide where to go based on that. You get so 'color blind' to seeing the color that you have, that you can not be objective on your own image. So let the software to adjust the color to "wake you up" to what may be the right color.
Here is what happened to one of your images. It cleared the muddy-ness of the image but maybe too far. I would not go that far but would clear it up.

This one is done with Auto Color Balance. Shortcut: Hold down Cntrl+Shift and press b


This one was done with Auto Levels. Shortcut: Hold down Cntrl+Alt and press L


Now you know which way to head. You don't have to accept PS choices but it does give you another opinion.

Here is what happened when I did mine. I like the color of the first one better than the levels so I will choose to adjust mine more toward this than the Levels one.
This one was done with Auto Color Balance


This one was done with Auto Levels

[rockpics]

Thanks, Mike. His skin tone looks good now.