> http://i.pbase.com/v3/87/63987/1/47696778.DariusJim.jpg
Hello, Jay ... The expression on your grandson's face is great, and the connection between him and Jim is, to me, obvious. However, this photo suffers for the details. For example, the dirt on Darius's shirt is an annoying distraction. Cutting off Jim's chin lessens the strength of this family snap. Had you just tilted the camera down a couple of degrees we'd see a little more of Jim. That extra bit would give the photo a stronger "base" and would have also strengthened Jim's character a bit. Chins are very important in portraits - perhaps as important as, or second only to, eyes. At the same time, it would have clipped a bit off the top of Darius, giving his eyes more power and intensity. Speaking of the eyes, balancing the catchlights in Darius's eyes may also help a bit. Bringing down the brighter of the two would, imo, be the way to go. The pic looks a little washed out on my screen. Using curves, I brought it down a little, which provides a little more saturation to Darius's shirt, and adds a little more depth to the shadows and highlights. I also reduced the amount of red in Jim's face. There's a lot of unneeded space in this snap. Cropping to a 5x7 or so format would help. Getting rid of the extraneous space on either side of the subjects, as well as trimming a bit from the top, seems to strengthen this shot quite a bit, allowing the subjects to form more of the missing base resulting from the too-close framing of Jim's chin. Finally, I noticed quite a few artifacts on Darius's forehead, noticeable just a bit below his hairline above his left eye. Also some in his eybrow. I hope you don't mind my suggestions and adjustments. I liked the pic enough to want to play with it a bit. http://home.earthlink.net/~pdml-pics/jt.html Shel
