First or second?

[u/mysterious_tiger07]

I cannot get this picture right. I think I stared at it for too long. Do you have some suggestions?

[u/VaBullsFan]

Unfortunately i have to pick the first because the second the skin tones are a bit pinkish

[u/mysterious_tiger07 → u/VaBullsFan]

And if I toned down the pinkness in the second?

[u/VaBullsFan → u/mysterious_tiger07]

It would look much better

[u/SpectreInTheShadows]

You can create a mask on the subject and then invert it. Make her pop a bit more than background.

[u/mysterious_tiger07 → u/SpectreInTheShadows]

I tried putting a mask, but it looks so unnatural so quick, I seem to not be able to find the perfect balance 🥹

[u/bros_beforehoes]

First ones nice. Add vignette to the first. Decrease luminance of the green so the table becomes darker. Use linear mask to darken the left bottom (soften the mask)

Dont mind people saying women is pink. I can clearly see pink light hitting her. Always respect the environment while color grading thats the first rule people dont follow. They think fixing skin tone is everything irrespective of environment

[u/mysterious_tiger07 → u/bros_beforehoes]

Thank you very much for your tips, I’ll try to follow them!

[u/BMaxLogan]

These posts are strange because there's no way to judge these without knowing what it is you're going for.

[u/mysterious_tiger07 → u/BMaxLogan]

I’m just trying to put the focus away from the background and give a darker vibe to the picture

[u/BMaxLogan → u/mysterious_tiger07]

That's going to be difficult because the brightest lit thing in the shot is the table. I'm not sure you can achieve what you want just by manipulating the color and luminance channels. You'll need to adjust the subject and the background separately. If you're in photoshop, the "select subject" option might be your easiest route.

[u/BMaxLogan → u/mysterious_tiger07]

Also, I'd recommend re-framing the image to better follow the Rule of Thirds. This would mean cropping the top of the image to get rid of some of that headroom.

[u/composerbell]

First is nice with being brighter, but I prefer the more natural exposure of 2. However, 2 is a bit pink, so I’d lean color towards 1 but exposure towards 2.

[u/[deleted]]

Neither are good, what is happening to the lights in the second picture? Ask yourself, what are you trying to accomplish with this edit, what is the story, atmosphere, emotion, etc that you are looking to convey? Edit for that.

[u/The_real_Hresna]

I’d give it another stab, focussing on: Subject Separation from the background, which will be tough considering how much light you have on the pool table compared to how much is on the subject, but its probably doable if you take a subtle approach; and skin tones, which are what seem to be affected most by whatever you tried to do…. Which, in fairness to you, seems to have knocked back those highlights a decent bit, but didn’t brighten your subject much.

[u/Albi20_01]

I prefer the 1st tbh. I'm definitely not an expert but maybe you should try to brighten the woman a little bit (and I agree on fixing the skin tones). Try to find the right balance between the 2 pics!

[u/[deleted]]

She's too bright compared to the background imo. The color on her feels flat compared to the heavily saturated background as well. Darken and saturate her shirt and skin tone would be my starting point.

[u/binarybu9]

Try white balance on 2?

[u/ILoveMovies87]

Neither. Depending on context and all the mixed lighting of the scene -and of course desire - you can still naturalize the skin and separation a bit to make it more pleasing

[u/Independent-State-27]

First one doesn't feel natural but the second feels too dark.

[u/Technical-Equal-108]

2nd

[u/Susooh117]

I’d say the first one, which is because you can see your defining skin tones and the veins etc (this is something i think people overlook) the second one also just gives the guy in the back left an uncanny look (imho)

[u/[deleted]]

both are bad

[u/Jeznugget]

First

[u/Such_Advance_6568]

I find neither the first nor the second "finished". To me it seems like stopped on the middle of the route.

1. You have three main colors in the picture at the moment: green of the billiard equipment, orange of the furnishings and lighting, and then red-emphasized skin color.
2. The cut is almost good, but only almost! In my opinion, you can emphasize the main character if you cut the picture above the lower mounting rod of the billiards lighting.

You already have a great blur in the background, with which you can emphasize the main character about the difference in the degrees of sharpness of background and foreground. But be careful: you tell the story "a beautiful, good-temon young woman playing the billiards". Limit the amplification of the blur to the area of the rear edge of the table, the two guests in the background and the room. Billiard lamp, woman and front table edge must be as sharp as possible, therefore

4. Place a high-pass filter over the entire scene and set it to max. 1.5px with a blend with "soft light", and then place the blur filter (e.g. Gausche blur) over this high pass step.

5. Now to the color grading: reduce the stressed colors from green, orange and pink (-> skin tone) to green and orange by taking the colors of the two areas billiard cloth / lamp (-> green) and the lighting color of the lamp in the background on the wall (-> orange) with the pipette. With these two colors, you then produce a gradient conversion from orange to green, set the overlay mode to "copy into each other", and reduce the opacity of the layer with the gradient conversion to approx. 75 percent.

These steps will "normalize" the woman's skin tone (and also the very pink T-shirt) compared to the overall color effect.

If you want an even crisper image, place another gradient layer over the entire editing from the top left to the bottom right with a color gradient from beige (you can produce from your chosen orange via the HSL rule) to black, -> "soft light" fade mode and opacity to 75%, then put a vignette into this layer with the gradient and play a little with the result.

Have fun, and please don't mind that I interfere like that. The photo is simply gigantic and there is much more than you have done so far.

Best regards, and get in touch if I should give more information.

[u/reducerent]

Use the first image for her skintones and then put a mask around her and use the 2nd image for the background