First post - be gentle...

jrollins

Okay, these are the first images I've ever posted for feedback, so be gentle.

My oldest daughter with "Buddy" the bear.



The same daughter wondering why she is staring into the woods.




My son getting ready to take me at basketball.



My neighbor's daughter playing in the water.



Thanks!

MattGoins

The second one is great, you just wonder what she's staring off at.

jrollins

MattGoins wrote:

The second one is great, you just wonder what she's staring off at.

Probably a cat since there are a bunch of strays around my parent's house.

System

like the photos--

if I may, my two cents worth on the first one-

crop to get the upper left sun out--it's distracting-

if you're using elements or ps, tweak with levels and/or curves to bring out your daughter's face with a little light and contrast--

I think the color balance is ok, but there are some guys (when I say that, I mean ladies too) who can see color casts where I don't (which hopefully I''ll get with time)-

then possibly some sharpening--

I personally would like to see it converted to black and white, but then I'm partial to b/w--

thanks for sharing-

george

System

ps-

see 'making your image 'pop'' under how-to>tutorials-

Art Scott

my 1 cent worth is this: Photo 1...yes the sunlight is distracting and for me needs abit bit more contrast and saturation.....Photo 2 I kie the looking off into "space" or woods.....it is a look of insightfulness and 3 and 4 well get ready to have that boy beatdown real bad at B- ball (good shot)....also good one of the neightbors daughter...nice expression....would have liked to see the water spray that got her wet.....

Over all nice.

Art Scott

Also remember if everyone goes easy....Whatt'll ya learn????

DavidTO

gefillmore wrote:

ps-

see 'making your image 'pop'' under how-to>tutorials-

Yep. Right here.

System

hopefully I'll get this photo on here-

cropped--
tweaked with levels and curves--
sharpened--

again, please see the tutorial on 'pop' to get this down right--you learn it that way it will be much easier in the long run--

System

b/w conversion--

b/w lab conversion action (free from ps site)-

sepia toned--

background blurred--

tweaked with shadow/highlight--

Art Scott

Great job.... Both are great....

Frog Lady

Pop!

gefillmore wrote:

cropped--
tweaked with levels and curves--
sharpened--

again, please see the tutorial on 'pop' to get this down right--you learn it that way it will be much easier in the long run--

you nailed it! It's amazing to see what can be done in PP. Gives me hope for some of my images:D Ah, so much to learn... I'll definately be going over that tute.

System

this was a good photo that was quick and easy to work with--

one important thing to mention--

on this photo you underexposed some which left info in the pixels to be manipulated--do everything you can with your shots (unless it's on purpose for composition sake) to not overexpose because you can't do much with blown highlights--

also, if you're not doing it now and you have the camera and software to do it with, shoot in raw files and save them as such because that gives you a lot of room to maneuver for corrections--

jrollins

ART SCOTT wrote:

Also remember if everyone goes easy....Whatt'll ya learn????

Not at all - that's why I'm here. I'm an extreme nOOb but I really love this stuff and want to get better. There's no better feeling than capturing a great shot of your kids, IMHO anyway.

jrollins

gefillmore wrote:

hopefully I'll get this photo on here-

cropped--
tweaked with levels and curves--
sharpened--

again, please see the tutorial on 'pop' to get this down right--you learn it that way it will be much easier in the long run--

I agree with the crop, just didn't take the time to do it for some reason.

I guess I REALLY need to calibrate my LCD because that looks over saturated and a little too sharp. I plan to invest in calibration equipment soon though...

jrollins

gefillmore wrote:

also, if you're not doing it now and you have the camera and software to do it with, shoot in raw files and save them as such because that gives you a lot of room to maneuver for corrections--

Yep, it's a Canon 300D and I usually shoot in RAW. My problem is that when I'm "playing around", or my wife is using the camera it goes into JPEG mode and I forget to change it back. I need to run through a check list before I start shooting...

System

well I dunno--

might be oversaturated and too sharp for real--

like eating, (I was going to say sex, but that's a joke) I tend to overdo--

DavidTO

jrollins wrote:

Yep, it's a Canon 300D and I usually shoot in RAW. My problem is that when I'm "playing around", or my wife is using the camera it goes into JPEG mode and I forget to change it back. I need to run through a check list before I start shooting...

jrollins,

Also make sure to check out our brand new Making Your Image "Pop", Part 2!

Andy

What a cool thread.

System

re pop1 and pop2
nice tuts!

DavidTO

gefillmore wrote:

nice tuts!

Why, thank you!

zigzag

Hi Mr. Jrollins and welcome to dgrin :

I took the liberty of redoing the first pic as well, because I got the much-talked-about Dan Margulis Lab Color book for Christmas, and the first shot seemed ideal for some of the techniques. Sharpening-wise, what you posted has a lot of jpeg artifacts in it that would sharpen, so I did only a tad. Also, I didn't bother cropping, because I was mainly interested in what I could do with the color. So I'm just a beginner at it, but I did this in about 5 minutes:





Have to say that from my point of view the hype about the Margulis book is not hype

DavidTO

zigzag wrote:

Hi Mr. Jrollins and welcome to dgrin :

I took the liberty of redoing the first pic as well, because I got the much-talked-about Dan Margulis Lab Color book for Christmas, and the first shot seemed ideal for some of the techniques. Sharpening-wise, what you posted has a lot of jpeg artifacts in it that would sharpen, so I did only a tad. Also, I didn't bother cropping, because I was mainly interested in what I could do with the color. So I'm just a beginner at it, but I did this in about 5 minutes:





Have to say that from my point of view the hype about the Margulis book is not hype

zigzag,

Nice start. This whole color correcting thing is a never-ending learning curve. That's what I like about it!

The version you posted has too much magenta in relation to yellow in this image. Unless you want the skin to look sunburned, the yellow should always be more than magenta.

zigzag

Ha - live and learn. I wanted to bring out her hair, so I tweaked the a curve more than the b.

Haven't gotten to the chapter on portraits yet

jfriend

Beautiful image #1

jrollins wrote:

Okay, these are the first images I've ever posted for feedback, so be gentle.

My oldest daughter with "Buddy" the bear.

This first image is an absolutely stunning capture. I love this image. If I had taken this of my daughter, I'd probably consider it the best picture of her for the year. I took it into Photoshop and did a little retouch to really bring out the subject. This is what I got (workflow steps below):



And here are the workflow steps:

• Switch to LAB mode
• Create a curve adjustment layer on the L channel.
• Pull the highlights side of the curve over 27%. The only highlights that are blowing here are the sky in the background. This gives the image a lot more dynamic range (spreads out the tones). If we want to restore the sky we can with a mask, but it will probably get cropped out anyway.
• Create another curve adjustment layer and add a slight S curve to increase contrast.
• In the A channel, push in both ends 15%.
• In the B channel, create an S-curve and do a little color correction on the skin color (which is slightly too red) by letting the middle of the curve move a little bit away from the magenta.
• Brighten the teddy bear so it stands out from the leaves. Create a burn/dodge layer (new layer, overlay mode, filled with neutral gray) and paint with a 15% opacity white brush on the bear to make it stand out from the leaves. I didn't even realize she was holding the bear for the first 10 minutes I looked at this image, but it's a great part of the image.
• Crop tighter to remove the bright sky from the image.
• I didn't even try to sharpen this image because all I have is such a small image to work with, but if you were working on the original, you'd sharpen it now.
• Switch back to RGB.

jrollins

jfriend wrote:

This first image is an absolutely stunning capture. I love this image.

Thank you. I'm quite fond of it myself.

jfriend wrote:

And here are the workflow steps:

• Switch to LAB mode
• Create a curve adjustment layer on the L channel.
• Pull the highlights side of the curve over 27%. The only highlights that are blowing here are the sky in the background. This gives the image a lot more dynamic range (spreads out the tones). If we want to restore the sky we can with a mask, but it will probably get cropped out anyway.
• Create another curve adjustment layer and add a slight S curve to increase contrast.
• In the A channel, push in both ends 15%.
• In the B channel, create an S-curve and do a little color correction on the skin color (which is slightly too red) by letting the middle of the curve move a little bit away from the magenta.
• Brighten the teddy bear so it stands out from the leaves. Create a burn/dodge layer (new layer, overlay mode, filled with neutral gray) and paint with a 15% opacity white brush on the bear to make it stand out from the leaves. I didn't even realize she was holding the bear for the first 10 minutes I looked at this image, but it's a great part of the image.
• Crop tighter to remove the bright sky from the image.
• I didn't even try to sharpen this image because all I have is such a small image to work with, but if you were working on the original, you'd sharpen it now.
• Switch back to RGB.

I can see I have a lot to learn in this respect...

Thanks all!

TopRow

Agreed with all above, this is an excellent pic of your daughter! Photog's used to get to play under red light, but now much can be done in photoshop. It's daunting when you start playing in PS--there are sooo many choices and tools. Heck, I'm a tech guy for a living and PS "scares" me a little bit. The best part about it is UNDO -- you can always get back to where you started with no harm done. So, play with it all you want, you can't break it!

System

comparison
would like to see these closer together--
jr

System

zz

System

jf

System

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