Looking for C&C, I'm so new at this...

Tay

I've had my camera since December, and I think I'm finally to the point where I actually understand what I'm doing. Now I just have to work on mastering it easier said than done, of course.

These are some shots I took over the weekend while on vacation in San Diego, I'd love all the input I can get! I feel these are the best photos I've ever taken, so far. I can see that I'm getting better (which is so exciting), but I know I've still got a lot to learn.

These first two are of my handsome man

1.

2.

This one I did the best I could with, the sun was beating down on us and I used a flash to fill in the awful shadows on his face... you can still see the darkness around his eyes, unfortunately.
3.

This one came out a bit blurry but it's the best shot I got of the three brothers together.
4.

The whole family; Mom, Dad, and all 4 siblings (and one sibling in law )
5.

snap-a-head

I'm loving the last pic... especially with the cheeky bunny ears... very nice

Tay

Thank you! I got several shots like that with them silhouetted against the beach, most of them are normal but in this particular one I caught the brother giving his little sister bunny ears made it my favorite shot of the set by far.

kris10jo

Hi Tay ~ the first thing that pops out at me is that the first three shots (maybe not #2 as much) be cropped in a little too tight from the shoulders up, at least to me, but I would try cropping in tighter on them to see if that improves the composition. The third one probably won't work cropped. Also, if you have a photo editing program, I'd suggest a little editing to refine them a bit.

Keep shooting! It's the best way to learn!

Tay

I will try the tighter crop as soon as I get home! Thanks for the suggestions

I have lightroom, but I only barely know how to use it. Most of it is just fiddling around with the buttons until something looks cool... which is working so far, but only just so, if you don't mind me asking, what do you mean by 'refining' them with editing software? What sort of tools would you use or steps would you take?

adbsgicom

Tay, I just did this in 3-4 minutes in PS, but you can do most of this is LR (except the sharpening) on #3. The halos around the guys are bad since I didn't do any good masking, but this is more concept than final product... You can bump the exposure on them (and leave the sky as-is) using the adjustment brush, and fix the color cast using the WB sliders. They look a bit green-ish in this take, but you get the idea. I used an unsharp mask in CS4 by converting to LAB and just sharpening the L channel to keep as much of the color data unmolested.
brothers.jpg

ki_user

Find the background a bit distracting on the 1st 3, especially #3, it's fighting my eyes attention, great pics all the same. Loving the silhouette.

Prefer the original to the edit, sorry but IMHO that edit is awefull.

kris10jo

I use Photoshop Elements, so you've probably got more features available to you in Lightroom. I use a PS Elements book by Scott Kelby to experiment with editing features. If you have a book, I think it's a great way to practice and learn the tools that are available to you. Once you get the hang of some of the tools, you'll get a feel for what simple changes work for you and your photos.

Just by doing a quick search, I found a tutorial on Digital Photography School. While this may not be your style, you can probably learn some things (what you like and don't like) by trying out some tutorials.

http://digital-photography-school.com/the-dave-hill-look-in-lightroom

I usually open the files in Camera RAW and adjust lighting and contrast if necessary. Then I open in PSE, sharpen, and adjust levels. Adjusting the levels, at least for me, helps brighten up the faces in photos, just a tad, so that it stands out a little more against the background. You have to be careful, though, because it's easy to get carried away.

leaforte

The last two made me smile.

ki_user

Would have gone for something a bit simpler as an edit on that one.

adbsgicom

ki_user, no disagreement that the edit wasn't good.

leaforte

Oh, and, Welcome....sorry.

Tay

^ thank you

I wanted to keep the blue in the photo, it was just past sunset when I took it and the sky was so rich, I loved it. I'm going to play around with it a little more, I'm going to have to find a tutorial on how to just edit certain parts (such as the faces) of a photo rather than the whole thing...

Thank you for all your feedback! It really, really helps

ki_user

Tay wrote:

^ thank you

I wanted to keep the blue in the photo, it was just past sunset when I took it and the sky was so rich, I loved it. I'm going to play around with it a little more, I'm going to have to find a tutorial on how to just edit certain parts (such as the faces) of a photo rather than the whole thing...

Thank you for all your feedback! It really, really helps

Had a play, It's quite tricky because the whole picture has a blue cast.