Team Pic

Oldaker

Well here is a shot of the team pic i took, what do you think,
iso 200
shutter 400
aperature f5.0
and used a sb600 flash, and turned the power down on it to -1.0
any recommendations for next time

mercphoto

I think it needs a bit of PP. Colors seem a bit flat. It just doesn't pop at me.

Oldaker

ya thats what im thinking too, but thats where i really really struggle

mercphoto

Oldaker wrote:

ya thats what im thinking too, but thats where i really really struggle

Gotta learn though. Images just will never look top-notch right from the camera. (they never did in the days of film, its no different with digital) Try this. Bump the contrast a little bit. Ditto with saturation. Apply a mild curve. That little bit should do wonders. Heck, even an auto-levels in Photoshop would probably do well all on its own.

Erbeman

I took a quick stab at it for ya. It's no where near perfect but it's better. A few things to change next time you do this:

Don't line them up on a line. Because you did this and didn't frame the pic perfect, everything is off and that chalk line is the only thing causing it.

Find a background that isn't so busy. I cloned out several things.

Get closer. There was way too much sky and foreground which makes the faces nearly unrecognizable. I cropped alot of it.

These few things aren't going to make you a pro, but they will help your pics look better and like Bill stated, you must learn to post process. Knowing how to is nearly as important as knowing how to use your camera.

Keep em coming brother

Erbeman

Dumb me, I forgot to put the pic in. Here you go.

mercphoto

Erbeman wrote:

Dumb me, I forgot to put the pic in. Here you go.

Nicely done! The ONLY thing about that crop is you might not get an 8x10 out of it any longer. Damn framing industry! If they were run by engineers then all frames would be the same aspect ratio!

Erbeman

mercphoto wrote:

Nicely done! The ONLY thing about that crop is you might not get an 8x10 out of it any longer. Damn framing industry! If they were run by engineers then all frames would be the same aspect ratio!

Yea, it was a really small pic to begin with, then it was too open. There is a resolve however. Whenever you have a pic like this one that is now really small and not a conventional size, just buy an bigger frame, it doesn't matter how much bigger, then go to Hobby Lobby and take your pic and frame, for probably 5 bucks they can take an already made matt for your size of frame and cut out the dimensions to spec for your pic to fit right in there. Works like a charm.

Oldaker

hey all, thanks for the info and help there,ya im def on the learning curve of the pp, but im reading and trying as much as possible, btw
on the cropping, on all my pictures should i just leave them original size and upload them, or go ahead and crop them to certain sizes?
reason i ask is, if someone wants a 8x10 of this pic, it will need cropped a lot correct? because it always shows 8x12 does not need cropping, is 8x12 becoming the standard now instead of 8x10

Erbeman

Oldaker wrote:

hey all, thanks for the info and help there,ya im def on the learning curve of the pp, but im reading and trying as much as possible, btw
on the cropping, on all my pictures should i just leave them original size and upload them, or go ahead and crop them to certain sizes?
reason i ask is, if someone wants a 8x10 of this pic, it will need cropped a lot correct? because it always shows 8x12 does not need cropping, is 8x12 becoming the standard now instead of 8x10

Was the pic that you posted here the original size?

Oldaker

no it wasnt, when i do "get a link" to post a pic here, i always just use the large,
btw, i have lightroom 2 and photoshop cs4, is there any plugins or anything that i may need to get for lightroom that my help me in my pp?
again, thanks for the patience all, i am learning, i guess just asking questions is helping alot
here is the x3 large version

Erbeman

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/crop-images/

This link should help with your question. I have never touched lightroom. I use CS3. My camera sensors are big enough that I could crop off half the pic and still be fine making an 8x10 so I've never really had to worry much about cropping too much.

If you have a smugmug site where you can sell pics, just upload both the original and perhaps the one that I touched up, then go back in and go through the steps of buying those pics until it takes you to the crop page. Then you will see what you are working with. If you don't have a smugmug site that you can sell from, send me the original and I'll figure it out for ya.

beetle8

Just my opinion,
LR is an amazing program, you should learn to use it before you start applying plugins and presets to your pictures. All of those are going to require fine tuning and tweeking anyway so if you don't know hw to operate the program efeciently then you are going to end up with pictures that have had a preset/plugin applied but still look like they need something.
There are a ton of resources on the web for all of the Adobe products. You can start right at Adobe, with their free beginier get started tutorials for LR. This will be a good start for you, because one of the first things your original picture needs is a levels adjustment and this is pretty basic PP and so these begining lessons/tips will be a great place for you to start.

90% of my PP happens in LR

tjk60

beetle8 wrote:

Just my opinion,
LR is an amazing program, you should learn to use it before you start applying plugins and presets to your pictures. All of those are going to require fine tuning and tweeking anyway so if you don't know hw to operate the program efficiently then you are going to end up with pictures that have had a preset/plugin applied but still look like they need something.
There are a ton of resources on the web for all of the Adobe products. You can start right at Adobe, with their free beginner get started tutorials for LR. This will be a good start for you, because one of the first things your original picture needs is a levels adjustment and this is pretty basic PP and so these beginning lessons/tips will be a great place for you to start.

90% of my PP happens in LR

+1

Take ur pic, set the blacks to clip slightly in LR, adjust exposure until the histogram touch the right side. dial in a pic of + saturation, sharpen and export, it'll be a huge improvement

When taking pics that are important, maybe shoot in RAW. You're WB is slightly off, affecting saturation a bit too...

ian408

Aside from the PP, you might want to take a moment to fix the pants on the player in the front row, picture left.

BGtom

Lately, I've begun cropping for composition, rather than convienience. I prefer the wider aspect ratio of a 4x6 (or 8x12) but some shots really beg for a fatter aspect. In those cases, I remove pricing for any size other than my chosen format, and I make a comment on the picture explaining what the deal is. I also tell my clients that since virtually EVERY picture I upload for sale has already been cropped for composition, if they ever want a different aspect for any picture to let me know and I will make it for them from the original, no charge. Life would be impossible w/o LR. Granted, this entails more work for me, but I want the picture I make for them to be beautiful and perfect when it hangs on their wall for all eternity and the personal service I provide makes them feel important.

now my question...a friend suggested to me that I should take team shots from a short ladder. A little bit of height will make the players look up some, minimizing the dreaded Hat Shadow on the face, reducing the sky in the BG and increasing the darker ground making it easier to achieve a balanced exposure [with or w/o flash]. This would also cause the players to consume more vertical space than they usually would and make fitting it into an 8x10 much easier.

Anyone have any experience w/ this?

Tom

Oldaker

lol just noticed the kids pants on front row,,
i will get that fixed

beetle8

Oldaker wrote:

lol just noticed the kids pants on front row,,
i will get that fixed

, that's funny