Posted by Paul Ferrara: 
Her face and hair are blown out.  I'd call it overexposed instead of high-key.  This would be more high-key but it would have been better if she was white and had a fair complexion.



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Hey Paul!

I actually edited this in raw and it tells me if the highlights were blown.  It may not look like it because it is very light, but the highlights aren't blown - the detail is there.  (I admit that my use of the term "high key" is a bit loose, though.)

Nice shot by the way.

Thanks for the look and comments!

Posted by alexwh: 
Your face crop.

There are some unwritten rules that seem to be correct and specifically once you are aware of them. If you crop the face you crop just above the eybrows or just below the mouth. Anything on either side will look strange. If you crop arms you crop them between shoulder and elbow. After that you have to include the hands or you think some sort of amputee is involved. When you crop legs you must crop above knee and halway up. After that you must include foot. If you cut out feet the pic will look strange.

Alex -

Points on crop well taken.  Thanks for an extremely useful post.  I am taking notes!

Posted by XtremeArtists: 
The BKG isn't white. It is about 2% black.

EDIT: Also, Paul is correct, the hair and face are blown out in sections. Must have happened after the file was opened.

You guys are absolutely right - I just went back and checked - the histogram doesn't lie.  I think I most have done a bit of curve tweaking after the file was opened.  I learned something today.

Thanks guys!

Posted by alexwh: 
Paul is that a true white background on your model? I would bet it isn't.

Yep, true white.  Superior arctic white paper and two lights on it.

Paul