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Shooting my cousin's family for their Christmas card - they were 20 min late and the beautiful setting sun slipped into the horizon and we lost the great color and illumination I was hoping for. I had to use more flash then I wanted..

Now I'm left with nasty chromatic abrasion around the leafs in the tree, nasty glare on the eyeballs, and a nasty shadow to the right of the girl's arm. I embedded three pictures:

1. Raw from camera of the empty stool as I'm waiting and watching my light go away..
2. Best shot of the bunch, no PP
3. My best effort at PP

Gallery originals here: http://bit.ly/7P0DlW

If I use CS3 Chromatic abrasion removal for the trees it jacks up the rest of the pic - do I need to copy the b/g layer, do a mask and all that jazz for the trees or is there a better way?

What is the official stance on glare in the eyeballs from flash? I think it looks crummy, but I see some "pro" shots with it in - what's the best method of removing this? Link to any tutorials? Googling all I can seem to find is removing glare from eye glasses - no one seems to be concerned with glare on the eyeballs - even red-eye removal you see the final product with the white flash glare on the eyeball.

Last, if I haven't worn out my questioning - so when I find myself in this situation, how could I have shot this better? D80 + SB900, shot RAW NEF. 85mm/3.3, 1/60, 320iso.

Thanks so much! PS- this forum has been a great resource - thanks for everything.

Scott

The only glare i could see in the eyes is on the man. It's hard to tell with the size of the pics.
Is there something funky going on with the shoulder of the young girl? There appears to be a blue line around it. It doesn't seem to be part of the clothing.

IMHO, I don't think the catch light in the eyes is much of a problem, it makes the people more alive. If you don't like it, it should be very easy to clone it out. For a Christmas card size, I don't think it should be a problem.

Looking at the full size image on your smugmug gallery, the noise in the photo shows up. There again, it shouldn't be much of a problem at card size. If you do intend to get a larger print for them, run it through some noise reduction.

I think your final photo looks pretty good except for that shadow you talk about, I'm no PS expert so I'll leave that one to others.

There was nice light when you were waiting

cheers,

André

Hey,

Looking at you're gallery that you've got up with some of the glare issues,

the one with the guy sitting in the middle and the green tinge square at the right hand side is a classic cloning out example. though, i do suggest using a new layer for your clone.


The other one with the guy on the left side on the red truck, try burning the midtones on you're right hand side. though duplicate the layer first.
(other way of doing this is dup. layer and adjust you're curves and erase the left side as neccessary before flattening)


Hope my explaination helped a little. This might not be the right way to go around it, but this is what i'd be doing and it works 9/10 times.

Cheers

I know what you mean. At the last Wedding I shot I deliberately asked the bride (the night before the wedding) to be ready for photographing first, not the bridesmaids. I told her she was the point of attraction for the day and deserved the most time. What actually transpired? She was the last ready and all we got was a couple of hurried shots before we headed off to the church.

20 minutes is a long time to be late when you've waited for the golden hour. Nevertheless, you've done well.

Oh yes, not to be rude or anything, but i forgot to say that these are great images =) i dont think you'll need to remove the catchlight in the eyes for most of the portraits. =D