Family group shot

Hi,
Took these in front of our elementary school (there's this cool sculpture of 9 student desks). Subjects are me and my brother and sister and our SO's and children.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...vintage2-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...tBWSepia-1.jpg


Which version do you prefer? Any obvious PS faux pas? Any other feedback is welcomed and appreciated.
Thank you!

The location might be cool but the background is cluttered and the sky and street an pavement around the feet is washed out.
I like the various poses, especially the two middle girls.

I really would like the people to be brighter then the background. This would have been a good place to use a few flashes to make the people stick out. If it was shot in raw an exposure gradient with the top of the screen at -1 or so might help a bit. The contrast could also be increased to me.

It really is a very good group shot, but it would have been so much better without the bright sky in the background. You can SO totally work with this if you have it in raw. If not, well, then next time.

My feedback was in the last post. Shoot this in raw, there is so much you can do with an off exposure. The basic exposure is is I think about as good as you can do, but the dynamic range is so high that the shot is basically ruined. With raw you can go in and do some blending to save it. At least I think so.

I really like the arrangement here. I also like how candid it is, which is definitely working in this shots favor. The image grain looks very film-esque. Was this film, or just meant to look like a film print?

Only critiques are the lack of detail in the center tree, I'd like to see just a tad more detail (but not too much to get rid of the vintage print look). And Id clone out the two light poles on the left side. Both color and sepia look good, good work.

I think the blown sky and ultra-bright haziness actually work in this shots favor, and also contribute to the vintage look. The flesh tones all look great.

I guess thats you on far right?

i think if you take this shot from other side it well be better

look to the shadows of your family ... the sun is directly lighting on the lens of cam

i like the second virsion its somehow hide some poor color , and make the faces is more clear

this is my opinion

thank you

Thank you SO much for all the great feedback! It really helps alot :)

I am very new to photography and this is my first DSLR camera so I still have so much to learn. I have never tried shooting in RAW but I would really love to learn about it. Especially since it seems like that could have solved a lot of problems with this shot.

I knew it was probably the worst time of the day to take this picture, late in the day with the sun almost directly behind us. I would love to try it again, maybe earlier in the day would be better?

As for the background, I don't know what I could have done about it being cluttered, except try to clone out the houses and light poles as someone suggested. I think the different lighting would take care of the detail in the trees.

By the way, someone guessed I am in the middle on the right..... wrong :) I am in the back, middle. My mom has shown this to people who don't know us and asked them who was married to who and which children belonged to which couples and no one has gotten it right yet....

Thank you again!
~Aileen

Couple of things to do in camera for the background:

- Use a larger aperture (smaller f/stop). This will blur the BG more and make it less distracting.
- Use a longer lens. This will narrow the BG making less of it visible.
- Move a little. Possibly something better from a different spot?
- Get high (no, not that way :) ). If you get the camera up high, you can just have the grass and street or, if high enough, just the grass.

TF

How about a tighter crop all around, right to the bottom of the mans feet on bottom right and the top of the mans head on the top left. Then from the sides bring it in to right outside each persons elbow.

I think this will pop everyone out a bit and elimate the distractions somewhat of the foreground and background.