Editing in Photoshop

The main question is - what are you trying to achieve by editing your image?

As you already seem to know - you should have a solid digital original to work from. This one...isn't really that strong. Mainly because of your focus and the fact that there is alot of unmanageable flyaway hairs in her eyes. The colour of this doll's eyes is really the main impact of the photos, the grey scarf is a perfect compliment to it and the eyes should be where you focus your camera and where you concentrate on the correct lighting, catchlights and exposure.

You seem to want the image to be over-exposed and soft-focused or selectively focused - is that correct?

 

as stated before, this isn't photoshop, but you need to start with a photo where the focus is correct.
Focusing the scarf really puts the face out of focus, and though you redeemed it a bit by blurring the scarf, you still loose a lot of detail on the face that you could have had if you would have focused on it from the beginning.

That being said, as a result, this whole photo ended up being very soft, border-lining out of focus, so it makes it difficult to rest the eye on. You can probably go in with just the sharpening brush on a low pressure and bring the face out again.

Next, your color balance is off. I'm not sure if you did that intentionally but your photo is very yellow, so you can go in with color balance and move sliders around to get away from the yellowish tone.
With that, if you were going for natural color then your levels are a little off too. You really could darken the blacks a good bit.

As a style filter, I really don't find the yellow that flattering. We are trained in the doll community that yellowing is generally a bad thing, and as a result, making your doll look yellow through editing can really hurt a photo more than help it.


If you want me to go do a video walk through of reediting to show you what I'm talking about and how to fix it, I can.
It's just a few simple steps.

 

Here's a quick re-edit I did on my work computer (I'm at work right now XD I can get away with a quick Photoshop fix, but I can't do a video walk through here LOL)



Is that kinda the direction you were hoping to go??
If not, let me know and I'll try and see if I can come up with a way to match what you want to get.

 

Yellow and red are both warm colors, so the red would add to the feel of it being "yellowed". In order to remove a yellow cast, you add blue to it.

 

If you want to discuss capturing a strong original image...we can talk about that, too!

 

I feel a border "finishes" an image. Cropping can improve or detract from an image! I felt the flyaway hair was distracting.

What kind of gear are you using? Why are you having issues with focusing?

No worries on the "yellow" - all digital images need post-capture colour correction applied in software.

 

Ah! I think my buddy has a similar camera. I had it's "big brother a few years ago, too. XD

Using a tripod or anything to stabilize the while you take the shot helps with blurriness. I'm not sure how your camera works, but you can try focusing on your subject's face after you put it on Self Timer. That way you have minimal camera shake from shaky hands. Taking many shots is a good idea, since you should save the best ones and delete the rest on your computer.

The problem with that line of camera is that they focus on ...many things. I believe it has to do with camera's system, but it autofocuses on the oddest spots, usually ones with some amount of contrast. What camera mode are you using? As far as I know, the only way you can focus on one point if if you use something like Close-up, or "Flowers and Plants" mode, but it adds a yellow cast to everything.

Also, what kind of OS are you using on your computer? I know Win. 7 has a screen calibration mode, which could help since your screens seem to have a tint.

 

Got around to making you the video. Hopefully that helps.

[video=youtube;IanZn5TKz8s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IanZn5TKz8s[/video]



As far as color calibration. Yeah. It's all going to depend on the company who made the screen.
If you're looking at photography being a serious hobby or a job, then a "true color" monitor is really what you need.

Macs are so popular with graphic designers and photographers because of this. A mac has very true color and a mac is a mac is a mac is a mac. I can take my photo from one mac to another and it's going to look the same regardless, unless it's hooked up to a non-apple display.

From the reviews I've read, I've chosen samsung as my laptop of choice because I need a PC as a back end web developer, but reviews were saying that the samsung laptops had very true color, and now having owned two, I can say that I agree. Having take my photos from my laptop onto the macs at my university, I found that my colors weren't affected.

If you really want to have your screen calibrated correctly, you can invest in what is called a Spyder (I believe) which is a device+software that will accurately calibrate your display for you.

Internet browsers also have slightly different coloring of photos as well, my photos actually look different between chrome and firefox AND when I see them in photoshop - however, it's not drastic. Most of the times it's just a little less saturated or contrasty.

It's just a battle we have to deal with on a daily basis XD

 

Ah...the joys of insomnia...I can't get to sleep, so I'm poking around and finding cool older threads.

I know you said you've moved on to doing, which is fabulous, but somebody else with insomnia might be interested in the thread and I had a little different take on the problem/solution. I think it's a gorgeous photo. Could the focus have been better? Yes. But the intensity is fabulous and the focus issue is fixable. I had two main problems that I focused on, other than working with the same issues the others have mentioned, re: the white balance.

1) White. Avoid it like the plague because it's gonna pop out of the image. My eye goes toward the bottom of the image because of the glaring white, not so much the focus of the scarf. The pale grey on the side is also a problem, for the same reason.

2) The focus absolutely must be the eyes; I totally agree there as well. Which means the points of greatest contrast need to be there...hence the addition of reflection. It was tricky getting the reflection in just the right spot, and I'm not sure I have it quite right yet for that straight-forward focus, but I think it gives the idea. BTW, I used the clone brush to pick up the paler tones in her face for the reflection, not white. That ties it in better with the image as well as avoiding the evil white pixels.



I cropped severely to get rid of all the white, both on the side and bottom. (I actually blacked out a tiny section of white at the bottom to keep the sweep of the scarf in there as well as keep the image from getting square. I then selected the face and eyes, feathered the edge, promoted it to it's own layer and did a slight gausian blur on the lower layer. I used the burn brush on the lower layer, fairly large, soft brush tip, to push the scarf, the bit of neck and her ears...oh, yes, also the pink on the side, solidly back behind her face. I did a white balance on the overall image to cool it down, very slightly brought up the overall red, and added highlights to the eyes.

Mostly, I just had lotsa fun! Thanks for letting us play with your pretty picture.