# I need your help. This is driving me EFFING INSANE.



## e.rose (Oct 22, 2014)

I think this is the first time I'm posting for C&C *before* making an image public.

...Because there is something that has been driving me insane about this photo for the past 24 hours.

I was at my friend's house yesterday and he made some comments, and his artist roommate made some comments, but after *thinking* I had it settled yesterday, I opened it up to write a blog post, and it's still driving me nuts.

Or was.

I think I'm okay with it now, but... I'm not entirely confident in that decision. 

So tell me what you think. I'm not going to say what's been bothering me, because I want to see if someone else mentions it or not.


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## snerd (Oct 22, 2014)

Is is the weird-looking thing on top of her head?!


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## e.rose (Oct 22, 2014)

snerd said:


> Is is the weird-looking thing on top of her head?!



No. What weird looking thing?


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## Mirrorless Journey (Oct 22, 2014)

I think it's a great portrait. Love the lighting and the post-process. If I wanted to be picky, I could say that the little thing in the lower left corner is bothering me a bit (no idea what it is) and there is a white "hole" in her hair just over her right shoulder that looks strange too. But the important thing for me is those eyes that are drawing me to her and held me there, wanting to know more. That, in itself, tells me you did a good job on the other side of the lens


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## tirediron (Oct 22, 2014)

Going over the image nit by nit, in no particular order:

-Bright window, highlights on top of couch & distracting background;

-Light position too low;

-Eyes too dark;

-Dark hair image right blending with dark top;

-Missing right arm; and

-Highlight/shadow balance on face doesn't seem quite right.


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## snerd (Oct 22, 2014)

e.rose said:


> snerd said:
> 
> 
> > Is is the weird-looking thing on top of her head?!
> ...


Well, it's too big to be a stray hair. Looks like something standing about an inch above, towards the back.


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## runnah (Oct 22, 2014)

Is it the missed focus, bad exposure and poor composition?


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## snerd (Oct 22, 2014)

Looking at if full size, it's more readily visible.


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## snerd (Oct 22, 2014)

Of course, it could be nothing. What do I know!!


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## Derrel (Oct 22, 2014)

Is it the whitish hairs on her sweater (long-haired cat hairs?) and the small white flecks on her sweater? or the big sensor dust blob that's on her arm area? or her slightly uneven top lip? Or the ever-so-slight light colored line (?) under her lower lip. I dunno...I see those things, but I'm looking pretty intently for really big,bad wolf flaws...not seeing anything that I think "most people" would see immediately. But dark sweaters like that can be a massive lint- and hair-fest.

Now as to this "*Driving* you EFFING INSANE." business you speak of. Do you maybe mean, just, like,well, "Opening the car door for you at the already arrived at destination of insanity?" I mean, I thought you already made the drive to Insanity years ago! Mebbe??? lol  ;-)


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## Gary A. (Oct 22, 2014)

Clipping the elbow and the edge of the pillow in the bottom right are my biggest nits.


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## Rick50 (Oct 22, 2014)

Boy you guys are ruthless.


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## e.rose (Oct 22, 2014)

Mirrorless Journey said:


> I think it's a great portrait. Love the lighting and the post-process. If I wanted to be picky, I could say that the little thing in the lower left corner is bothering me a bit (no idea what it is) and there is a white "hole" in her hair just over her right shoulder that looks strange too. But the important thing for me is those eyes that are drawing me to her and held me there, wanting to know more. That, in itself, tells me you did a good job on the other side of the lens



Thanks. 

And yeah, I still need to crop it. I had the table cropped out, but then I scrapped that image and started over and I haven't cropped this one yet.



runnah said:


> Is it the missed focus, bad exposure and poor composition?



*Definitely* did not miss focus on this.



Derrel said:


> Is it the whitish hairs on her sweater (long-haired cat hairs?) and the small white flecks on her sweater? or the big sensor dust blob that's on her arm area? or her slightly uneven top lip? Or the ever-so-slight light colored line (?) under her lower lip. I dunno...I see those things, but I'm looking pretty intently for really big,bad wolf flaws...not seeing anything that I think "most people" would see immediately. But dark sweaters like that can be a massive lint- and hair-fest.
> 
> Now as to this "*Driving* you EFFING INSANE." business you speak of. Do you maybe mean, just, like,well, "Opening the car door for you at the already arrived at destination of insanity?" I mean, I thought you already made the drive to Insanity years ago! Mebbe??? lol  ;-)



Yeah I have to clean up her sweater too. That was *also* driving me nuts, but not what I was talking about, and already on the list of things to kill. 

Where do you see sensor dust? Can you circle it for me? I can't find it.

And yes. I'm already at the destination, you're right. 



Rick50 said:


> Boy you guys are ruthless.



That's okay, that's what I asked for.

That being said, no one has mentioned it yet. So. I think Im' gonna go make myself a sandwich, put this away for a while, go to work, get up in the morning and write the blog post (after I clean up her sweater and crop the image down, haha).


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## snerd (Oct 22, 2014)

Yer killin' me!! What is it?!?!?!?!


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## e.rose (Oct 22, 2014)

snerd said:


> Yer killin' me!! What is it?!?!?!?!



I can't tell you yet. 

There is someone who comments on my images sometimes who hasn't commented yet, and I'm waiting to see what they say.


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## bogeyguy (Oct 22, 2014)

The dress collar white spot in her hair, left side.


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## astroNikon (Oct 22, 2014)

e.rose said:


> I can't tell you yet.
> 
> There is someone who comments on my images sometimes who hasn't commented yet, and I'm waiting to see what they say.


The shape of her right eye
or maybe because he pants are on fire off camera ?

or maybe your hiding 2 of her fingers on her left hand

just a flying guess ...


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## Derrel (Oct 22, 2014)

It's just one dust blob...


 ...I'm really stoked to hear what YOU think is wrong with this shot, e.rose!


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## e.rose (Oct 22, 2014)

Derrel said:


> It's just one dust blob...View attachment 87498


OOOOOOOOOH. Sh*t. 

I was looking at her other arm, hahaha.

Thanks for pointing that out.

I will kill it.


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## DanOstergren (Oct 22, 2014)

I like the blue-ish matte look, but I think it could be reduced just a little bit. I think it makes the shadows blend together a little too much to the point where some depth is lost in the hair and the sweater. Otherwise, I think this is beautiful.

As for something that may be bugging you; I noticed a small dark spot on the under side of her wrist. It caught my attention, but doesn't really bother me.


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## gsgary (Oct 23, 2014)

The only thing that distracts me is she still has her clothes on


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## kdthomas (Oct 23, 2014)

I immediately replied without looking at other responses ... there a little blemish on her lower lip, her elbow is clipped. Makeup and skin seem beautiful to me.


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## Vince.1551 (Oct 23, 2014)

This is more of a dissection then a C&C lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Designer (Oct 23, 2014)

Is it the missing pin light?


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## Ron Evers (Oct 23, 2014)

Twin catchlights?  Not that it bothers me.


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## JoeW (Oct 23, 2014)

e.rose....first, I think she's a lovely model and that's a lovely portrait.

Now, what bugs me upon immediately looking at the photo is how damn busy it is compositionally. You've got circles on the top/sweater.  You've got the pattern on the drapes to the left.  You've got strong vertical and horizontal lines that are bright (so eye-catching) above the model.   And then there's that tiny speck of turquoise that grabs your eye off of her charm bracelet.  And it's not that each of them is bad, it's that all of them in combination makes it busy.  There's just a lot of shapes happening in this shot that compete for your eye. 

I think it would have been much stronger if
--you could eliminate the drapes to the viewer's left, OR
--eliminate the blinds above the model, OR
--put her in a more passive (or monotone) top, OR
--you eliminated the small chunk of turquoise off of the bracelet.

That's my 2 cents.


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## Vince.1551 (Oct 23, 2014)

All these could be fixed in PS eRose. Do you want to spend the time to do it? Do you? 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## manny212 (Oct 23, 2014)

3 fingered hand , weird Bat plane looking thingy lower left ? 

Hey, I like this portrait so....yea go get a sandwich


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## KenC (Oct 23, 2014)

It's a good portrait, and that's not my area, so I can't really nitpick on lighting, posing, etc., which all seem basically OK to me.  The one thing that struck me is that it feels like it needs to be cropped quite a bit on the left.  It's tight elsewhere and the drapes are just a distraction, imo.


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## curtyoungblood (Oct 23, 2014)

There are only two little nitpicks things I see that could potentially drive me crazy. The first would be that part of her bracelet is turned backwards. The second is the blue light on the very top of her head.


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## LCLimages (Oct 23, 2014)

Honestly - what first jumped out at me is it looks like her head is too small for her face.  All the other nits people have pointed out stand, but I didn't see them upon first glance.  To me, it looks like her eyes are too high on her face, or the top of her head is squished... hard to describe and totally off base with what everyone else said and she's still a pretty girl no matter what


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## The_Traveler (Oct 23, 2014)

JoeW said:


> e.rose....first, I think she's a lovely model and that's a lovely portrait.
> 
> Now, what bugs me upon immediately looking at the photo is how damn busy it is compositionally. You've got circles on the top/sweater.  You've got the pattern on the drapes to the left.  You've got strong vertical and horizontal lines that are bright (so eye-catching) above the model.   And then there's that tiny speck of turquoise that grabs your eye off of her charm bracelet.  And it's not that each of them is bad, it's that all of them in combination makes it busy.  There's just a lot of shapes happening in this shot that compete for your eye.
> 
> ...



I agree with Joe.
I think
She has a gorgeous face but there are so many other distractions pulling my eye away.
Her elbow is clipped, yet there is lots of unnecessary room on the other side so it looks like a framing error.
Those light drapes with hundreds of little semaphores waving to me are too much.
Eliminate some of the distraction (especially including that green thing) and crop to 4 x 5 so that her right side is not so loose in the frame.
All the other little things can be fixed once some of the distractions are gone.


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## sm4him (Oct 23, 2014)

JoeW said:


> e.rose....first, I think she's a lovely model and that's a lovely portrait.
> 
> Now, what bugs me upon immediately looking at the photo is how damn busy it is compositionally. You've got circles on the top/sweater.  You've got the pattern on the drapes to the left.  You've got strong vertical and horizontal lines that are bright (so eye-catching) above the model.   And then there's that tiny speck of turquoise that grabs your eye off of her charm bracelet.  And it's not that each of them is bad, it's that all of them in combination makes it busy.  There's just a lot of shapes happening in this shot that compete for your eye.
> 
> ...


I've been waiting to see if anyone else said what first struck me. I really, really don't like the combination of that pattern on the drapes and the dots on her sweater. 
Also, one of the sweater dots seems like it's actually in her hair instead and looks odd.

I didn't notice that colored charm at all until Joe mentioned it, but now that kinda bugs me too.

On the other hand, all of those things only seem to really bother me at first glance. Once I settle in to looking at the photo, I like it.


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## D-B-J (Oct 23, 2014)

Wow. It's amazing how many nit picks we can find in a photo... Sad almost.


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## Heather Koch (Oct 23, 2014)

Her bracelet??  That is the first thing that stuck out to me...


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## sm4him (Oct 23, 2014)

Oops. Posted in wrong thread!


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## JoeW (Oct 23, 2014)

D-B-J said:


> Wow. It's amazing how many nit picks we can find in a photo... Sad almost.


Nah, not at all.

When I'm talking to newbie photographers (and they want to know about the rules of a good photograph), I consistently have two answers.  I quote that famous photographer and pirate Captain Barbosa who says in Pirates of the Caribbean.... "Rules?  They're more like guidelines really."  And then I point out that there are thousands of compositional rules....and they often conflict--you can't follow them all simultaneously.  So what makes photography an art and not a science is the photographer's decision about what rules to break and which ones to follow.

So, all of the nit picking...it's just each of us as artists talking about what rules we'd apply (and which ones we'd ignore) with this photo.


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## e.rose (Oct 23, 2014)

DanOstergren said:


> I like the blue-ish matte look, but I think it could be reduced just a little bit. I think it makes the shadows blend together a little too much to the point where some depth is lost in the hair and the sweater. Otherwise, I think this is beautiful.
> 
> As for something that may be bugging you; I noticed a small dark spot on the under side of her wrist. It caught my attention, but doesn't really bother me.



Thanks Dan! :sillysmi:

Full disclosure... you were the one I was waiting for. 

It was the coloring that had me reeling for a while. I asked a friend a question, and it turned into a 3 way discussion between him and his artist friend, all with different ideas and I couldn't let it go, hahahaha.

In the end, I came home, looked at it the next day, took a piece of advice from the one friend, ditched everything else, and decided I was good with it.

Since you are usually the one with something to say about the coloring in my images, I was curious as to what you thought, since no one else mentioned anything about it. Although what you mentioned, isn't what was bothering me about it.

Between you and my friend... you always seem to mention a "lime green", and he always thinks I make things "too yellow", haha. So I was desperately trying to avoid both of those while working on processing this. 



gsgary said:


> The only thing that distracts me is she still has her clothes on



Gross, dude.

She's a kid.

I work with high school seniors. 



Vince.1551 said:


> This is more of a dissection then a C&C lol
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



It is, haha. But that's okay, that's kind of what I asked for.



Designer said:


> Is it the missing pin light?



What is a pin light?



Vince.1551 said:


> All these could be fixed in PS eRose. Do you want to spend the time to do it? Do you?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Nope.



manny212 said:


> 3 fingered hand , weird Bat plane looking thingy lower left ?
> 
> Hey, I like this portrait so....yea go get a sandwich



Bat plane?

OH, the *table*? 

Yeah, like I mentioned in a previous comment, I had this cropped before I re-edited it. I just haven't gotten a chance to do it again. That's one of the last things I do when I'm editing.



KenC said:


> It's a good portrait, and that's not my area, so I can't really nitpick on lighting, posing, etc., which all seem basically OK to me.  The one thing that struck me is that it feels like it needs to be cropped quite a bit on the left.  It's tight elsewhere and the drapes are just a distraction, imo.



See above comment



LCLimages said:


> Honestly - what first jumped out at me is it looks like her head is too small for her face.  All the other nits people have pointed out stand, but I didn't see them upon first glance.  To me, it looks like her eyes are too high on her face, or the top of her head is squished... hard to describe and totally off base with what everyone else said and she's still a pretty girl no matter what



I don't... I'm not sure... I mean, I can't fix that? I can't fix her face... 

I mean I *could*, but that's not what I do for senior portraits. They get skin retouching, not facial reconstruction. I save that for my models, not young, impressionable, girls with enough self-image issues. 



D-B-J said:


> Wow. It's amazing how many nit picks we can find in a photo... Sad almost.



Why is it sad?

I never expect to post an image that *no one* finds fault with.

Everyone has different tastes and opinions. I've learned to filter through the stuff that I actually care about vs. the stuff that I feel is just too rigidly "inside the box" or a matter of taste.



sm4him said:


> Oops. Posted in wrong thread!



Huh???


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## e.rose (Oct 23, 2014)

Thanks everyone, for taking the time to comment!!


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## Vince.1551 (Oct 23, 2014)

This image deserved enough of your time and I don't feel that it justifies any more time to be spent on it 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## e.rose (Oct 23, 2014)

Vince.1551 said:


> This image deserved enough of your time and I don't feel that it justifies any more time to be spent on it
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Yeah, I'm done, haha. I just have to clone out sweater fuzzies which will take two seconds, and crop it down.


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## sm4him (Oct 23, 2014)

e.rose said:


> sm4him said:
> 
> 
> > Oops. Posted in wrong thread!
> ...



Yeah, that was confusing, wasn't it?  So, here's what happened:
I was at lunch, and tried to view TPF on my phone. On tapatalk. Which I've used maybe 4 times and have yet to really figure out. I don't like it much.
So after looking in on several threads, I decided to post a picture of my lunch on one of them. Only I posted it in the wrong thread.

THEN, I couldn't figure out how to just delete the post from my phone. After fumbling around for  a minute, I did finally find a way to edit it, though.

And I figured it was better to have a mystic "Posted in wrong thread" message than a picture of my LUNCH in your thread. 

I was gonna come in and delete the whole thing once I got back to the office, but I guess there's no point in that now. 

P.S. Lunch was good though.


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## Geaux (Oct 23, 2014)

Landscape...ugh


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## e.rose (Oct 23, 2014)

Geaux said:


> Landscape...ugh



That rarely ever bothers me.

I'm one of those annoying landscape/portrait rebels.


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## DanOstergren (Oct 24, 2014)

D-B-J said:


> Wow. It's amazing how many nit picks we can find in a photo... Sad almost.


She literally asked us to pick it to pieces to try and solve what was bothering her about the photo. Calm yourself.


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## DanOstergren (Oct 24, 2014)

e.rose said:


> DanOstergren said:
> 
> 
> > I like the blue-ish matte look, but I think it could be reduced just a little bit. I think it makes the shadows blend together a little too much to the point where some depth is lost in the hair and the sweater. Otherwise, I think this is beautiful.
> ...


Haha, well that makes me feel pretty speshul! 

I don't think the yellow tones are bad in this shot; they compliment the model and the styling.


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## D-B-J (Oct 24, 2014)

DanOstergren said:


> D-B-J said:
> 
> 
> > Wow. It's amazing how many nit picks we can find in a photo... Sad almost.
> ...



I realize that. I can't be amazed at how many different nit picks we can find about a good image?


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## FITBMX (Oct 24, 2014)

I'm a little late to the party. 
 As for the photo.......... It's tribal! It is the worst example of photography I have ever ever seen, you should just give up and quit!!!! And send your cameras and gear to me!


Okay now the serious part.
It looked great to me, nothing really jumped out as being wrong. If I was you, I would notch this down as another successful shoot!!!


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## e.rose (Oct 24, 2014)

FITBMX said:


> I'm a little late to the party.
> As for the photo.......... It's tribal! It is the worst example of photography I have ever ever seen, you should just give up and quit!!!! And send your cameras and gear to me!
> 
> 
> ...



Haha, thanks!


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