How's the lighting and PP?

[te1221]

I'm attempting a new method of skin smoothing, and as always, playing wtih my light setup. Most of them are shot with an AB800 camera left with 35" octobox and a 28" umbrella'd AB800 shooting at the backdrop camera right.

http://www.timeng.net/photos/alina/IMG_6742.JPG

http://www.timeng.net/photos/alina/IMG_6746.JPG

http://www.timeng.net/photos/alina/IMG_6785.JPG

http://www.timeng.net/photos/alina/IMG_6869.JPG

I'm still trying to get the eyes to pop like a lot of other pictures I've seen but still not getting the results I'm looking for. Any tips?

The images may be too dark. My monitors are not calibrated, but now I just bought a second monitor for a dual view setup. The new monitor is much brighter so I'm not sure which one is the more accurate one.

[adam75south]

one thing i like when you have a setup like this is when people put the background light directly behind the subject with a grid spot so that it throws a round light on the backdrop giving it a natural vignette around the subject. you can always try making a homemade snoot out of foil and see what you can come up with. i think the key is trying to leave some sort of gradient of light on the backdrop.

as far as the key is concerned, the closer you can get it to her without being in your frame the better the light will look and the more the eyes will pop. it looks like you did a pretty good job of it in the second shot.

[Nickcanada]

Yeah, I think a little more background to subject separation would look good. I like the light the most in the second photo because of how soft it is.

What skin smoothing technique are you using???

I really like this one that Peter posted a while back.

http://djure-eng.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-potrtrait-workflow.html (http://djure-eng.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-potrtrait-workflow.html)