Beach Portrait

Portraiture isn't my speciality, but the skin tones are far too warm, making her look like she's glowing or been out in the sun too long. I would pull back on the saturation levels to make the skin tones look more natural and possibly cool them too. Also there are quite a few blown highlights in the sky which stand out due to the high saturation. There are two possibilities to avoid this, either expose for the background and use some fill flash to get the exposure right on the model or use a grad filter on the sky, trying not to cover her leg; you would need a tripod for that ideally though, which may not be practical. Compositionally, you have chopped the side of her arm off, so take more care while framing.
 
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Kernuak said:
Portraiture isn't my speciality, but the skin tones are far too warm, making her look like she's glowing or been out in the sun too long. I would pull back on the saturation levels to make the skin tones look more natural and possibly cool them too. Also there are quite a few blown highlights in the sky which stand out due to the high saturation. There are two possibilities to avoid this, either expose for the background and use some fill flash to get the exposure right on the model or use a grad filter on the sky, trying not to cover her leg; you would need a tripod for that ideally though, which may not be practical. Compositionally, you have chopped the side of her arm off, so take more care while framing.
Thanks for the input! The skin tones are too warm and that is me getting used to switching between sRGB and Adobe RGB. I agree with the blown highlights as well and when I finally get some lighting(more than just a hotshoe flash) I would expose for the sky and fill the rest with the flash. The chopping of her arm is me just missing the mark and agree wholeheartedly that it would be better not chopped off. Thanks again for the input!
 
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philsv77

Guest
Actually, it's not a bad portrait. It however could be improved if you raise 2/3-> 1 EV stop as the shot was underexposed due to backlit scene. Turning the body to face the light will also help. Composition wide, either give it more space or closing up a bit more to avoid cutting the body at the join. It seems handicapped photo as it's cut right at the waist.
 
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