Now this is one interesting cat. Is that Dapper Dan Pomade in his hair? sure he has enough? (C; The lighting is very harsh and bright. Makes him look very pasty in spots. the soft edge around the head and shoulders is VERY distracting and invades onto his face.
To me, the fuzziness around the subject detracts from this shot. It looks like you may have been attempting to remove the background? Better to try and get the background close to what you want at exposure time if at all possible. The lighting looks a bit flat as well, especially the bright area on the forehead. If you can't move your flash off the camera, perhaps you could try some natural light portraits with some white foamcore as a reflector for fill on the opposite side.
Potentially good subject (not sure about hairstyle :)) but the blurring at edges looks very unatural and adds nothing. Otherwise colours and composition are appealing.
The subjects face looks like it is missing on the left side -- like you erased it in editing. It really takes away from your photo. You can tell it is not a real background.
Guess you over-done the photoshop feather effect... the photo looked a little unnatural.... it's a relatively good attempt. but the photoshop effect spoiled it.. guess it'll be better with a tighter crop and less effect. ..a 3 for me.. sorry mate..
the effect you were trying to achieve with cloning/painting/blurring the background has been over done. you have cut into his cheek, chin and neck. his gaze is uncaptivating. sorry.
I wish you hadn't feathered so much, I found it distracting. Could be a great image. Wonder how it would look with a black background (except you might "lose" his hair that way). i do like the expresion you caught. Just get rid of that feathering! lol
An interesting study of this young man - the range of focus from gentle to soft is great. Perhaps the highlights are a tiny bit overexposed. It would be interesting to see this portrait with a not so high key background.
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