[jace22]

took the images below the other day but they have annoying shadows in them I have the 350d with kit lens I used the onboard flash but my brother is lending me his 550ex soon would like to try and take a potrait of the kids in their school uniform as the price of these things are getting out of hand

[johnaalex]

I thought this might have a tirade about Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch etc.

You could use the clone tool in Photoshop to "easily" get rid of the shadows in all 3 of these. I say easily as it is straightforward to do but you will need to take care and therefore a bit of time on each shot. Basically what the clone tool does is replace the unwanted part of an image with a colour you have selected so you would select a piece of the background near the shadow and "paint over" the shadow replacing it with the background colour.

Hope this helps.

[Liquid101]

Try and keep your subject away from the background - the closer they are, the sharper and more pronounced the shadow.

When using a flashgun, bounce the flash off the ceiling or wall. It'll give a much softer and more natural result. Try a diffuser too - or even a peice of white card stuck to the top to bounce the flash from.

Try and make the portrait in an area with good natural light - you'll be able get a better balance between background and foreground.

You can even make a simple diffuser for your pop up flash with some white paper.

[jace22]

well got hot hold of the 550ex and followed some of you suggestions here is the result not perfect but more along the lines of what i wanted to achieve

i have removed shadows in photoshop before along with other stuff but was just looking for advice on how to improve my actual photographs so thanks guys

next step is a shot with them in their school gear should save me a fortune and will add to my fund for upgrades

[TarMoo]

If you have a decent flash gun then try "bounced flash" like this one ...

Point the flash gun directly up to the ceiling. Then you will not get harsh shadows and the backgrounds wont look as dark.

If you want natural looking pictures, never point the flash directly as the subject.