Critique

[Picture_Video]

I really need some help. My photos are comming out washed out and I am not sure how to modify adjust skin tone to make it look even.

Can you tell me how you would improve this photo. Any tips on outdoor photogrpahy and enhancing skin tone....

[Allen]

My advice, as always, is to pay more attention to what is in the background. That wood structure is very distracting. You captured a great smile, but she's looking a little too downwards for my tastes. I know that didn't answer your skin tone question, but I'll leave that to the experts.

[brad]

She's washed out because it is too bright of a scene.. direct sunlight is quite harsh in Texas, even when the sun seems low. Try moving to open shade..

Also to enrich tones, a gold reflector may help.

[epoh]

Ditto Brad.. it's just too bright outside. Are you shooting RAW? When shooting outside, try shooting RAW and slightly underexposing the photo (like 1/2 a stop). It's a lot easier to brighten a photo up in photoshop than to try and darken a too-bright photo.

[bfphoto]

Photo is way over exposed. Were you shooting in auto mode? The camera probably took a reading off he black dress and said "that's too dark..I'll have to make it lighter to reach middle gray". If your camera has a spot meter, take a reading off the face and shoot at that exposure.

[amadjuster]

Try fill flash.

[Picture_Video]

thanks! Shame on me I am shooting raw but using the .jpg my camera produces.

A golden refelctor. Can you tell me where I can find one and if there is an alternative option?

Also, I have seen photos where the background is blurred does anyone know how to do that?

[epoh]

Another option besides using a reflector is fill flash.

To have the background blurred (a shallower depth of field) you need to use a larger/wider aperature. I'm not sure what lens are using, buy try f/2 - f/3.2 and go from there.

[dlbdata]

Agree on overexposed but also question whether the camera was set to auto-white balance. I try to avoid leaving the camera set to Auto-WB.

[Duffy Pratt]

It is overexposed, and it would be a nicer shot if the left cheek area were not blown, or near blown. But it is definitely a workable shot as it is.

I took the liberty of editing it some (If this is at all a problem I will of course delete it). First, I decided that the dress was black and not grey. I used curves to set the dress to 8,8,8. The numbers had been reading in the 17-20 range. Then I also decided that the white dots in the bow were a true white and ajusted the curves to bring them to neutral and to their origanal levels (somewhere around 211).

With this done, the face was still reading too yellow for me, so I pulled down the upper endpoint on the blue curve, which had the effect of steepening the blues and thus pulling some of the yellow out of the face.

Then I took a quick trip to LAB, and steepened the A curve some in the face area, while holding the reds in the dress and the neutrals still.

The result isn't perfect, but it was quick and very easy to do.

Duffy

[mike_sax]

There is an alternative option for a gold reflector. Around the holiday season you can pick up a gold tablecloth at WalMart or other locations for under $10. These work great are more than adequate for the amount of reflector surface you need.