My stab at 64 - Rock Climbing

Sugarloafur

So I was rock climbing a few days ago, and wondered if either of these photos would work for the challenge. I can't really change them, since I'm no longer climbing at the same place, but feedback is always appreciated. Thanks!


Leap of Faith


Climbing Rocks

Seefutlung

The first shot lacks sharpness to the face. The second is a bit better, but looks as if the focus is on the shorts not the face. The angle of the pix, the obivious difficulty in taking the shot is very apparent ... and they enchance the wow factor ... but without the focus being where it needs to be (in this case the face), the pixs fail to impress.

Sugarloafur

Seefutlung wrote:

The first shot lacks sharpness to the face. The second is a bit better, but looks as if the focus is on the shorts not the face. The angle of the pix, the obivious difficulty in taking the shot is very apparent ... and they enchance the wow factor ... but without the focus being where it needs to be (in this case the face), the pixs fail to impress.

Thanks for the feedback. I noticed these same issues, and I have a lot more, but not many good ones with his face. It was a tricky, fun, and scary place to shoot from. Scary because I didn't want to drop my equipment, tricky because it was off the side of a 60' cliff, and fun... well, just because! It's very hard to capture a climber looking straight up the cliff, as focus is usually only a yard or so above where the climber is. Thanks again for the comments.

Nee7x7

The second shot is by far the better of the two (and has a wow factor, despite the focus problems). I think the focus issue could be helped somewhat by sharpening the face more and maybe softening the shorts a tad (I know this is probably "bad" advice, but you might be able to pull it off and make the photo work - and fool our eyes, so to speak). Anyhow, that's my two cents worth, and it'll only cost you a nickle, lol! ~Nee

Nee7x7

Here's a quick example of what I mean (lots of artifacts since I didn't have the original file to work with...)

What I did - Used the sharpening tool to gently sharpen the face area. Used the blur tool to blur the lower part of his body and rope end. Adjusted contrast and used the dodge tool to lighten up the midtones on his face and the burn tool to slightly darken the shadows on his face to fine tune the sharpening effect. Used the burn tool (midtone setting) on his shorts and thigh to slightly darken that area. Then I created a duplicate layer and used a fairly mild gaussian blur (about 4.5%), then used the eraser tool to erase around his eyes, nose, mouth and helmet and any other areas where the details needed to be sharper, then with the layer set to normal, I reduced the opacity to around 25% (sorry, forgot to make a note of the setting...it's still too early in the morning for me!) and merged the layers. Then I cropped the pic slightly to bring it in closer to your main subject...and that is all!

Only took a few minutes to do all this and even though the end result is not the best quality for lack of the original file, just imagine what you can accomplish with the original! Shoot...I shouldn't be helping you cuz if you pull this off, you stand a good chance of beating the heck out of my entry in the challenge, lol! Well, I think your photo deserves a shot at it. Best of luck to you!

~Nee

Sugarloafur

Nee7x7 wrote:

Here's a quick example of what I mean (lots of artifacts since I didn't have the original file to work with...)

What I did - Used the sharpening tool to gently sharpen the face area. Used the blur tool to blur the lower part of his body and rope end. Adjusted contrast and used the dodge tool to lighten up the midtones on his face and the burn tool to slightly darken the shadows on his face to fine tune the sharpening effect. Used the burn tool (midtone setting) on his shorts and thigh to slightly darken that area. Then I created a duplicate layer and used a fairly mild gaussian blur (about 4.5%), then used the eraser tool to erase around his eyes, nose, mouth and helmet and any other areas where the details needed to be sharper, then with the layer set to normal, I reduced the opacity to around 25% (sorry, forgot to make a note of the setting...it's still too early in the morning for me!) and merged the layers. Then I cropped the pic slightly to bring it in closer to your main subject...and that is all!

Only took a few minutes to do all this and even though the end result is not the best quality for lack of the original file, just imagine what you can accomplish with the original! Shoot...I shouldn't be helping you cuz if you pull this off, you stand a good chance of beating the heck out of my entry in the challenge, lol! Well, I think your photo deserves a shot at it. Best of luck to you!

~Nee

Thanks for all the great advice! I'm not very much into enhancing my photos, but I guess I've got to start somewhere. I'll keep this in mind and maybe I'll pull it off. Thanks!

Sugarloafur

Photoshopped (actually, Paint-Shop-Pro-ed)
OK, here's the adjusted image:


and the original:

sayntbrigid

I think it a GREAT photo, the red blue yellow and white against the neutral rocky background is very nice

sayntbrigid

this is prolly ALL wrong, but I felt like turning it on the side, and adding some light...just to see what you think...then I would crop it a bit on the right if it was me to get rid of that extra bit of red....not that I know anything, I just think photos are lotsa fun )

Sugarloafur

sayntbrigid wrote:

this is prolly ALL wrong, but I felt like turning it on the side, and adding some light...just to see what you think...then I would crop it a bit on the right if it was me to get rid of that extra bit of red....not that I know anything, I just think photos are lotsa fun )

See, I like the rope in the image, it helps to give a little more depth, in my opinion, that's why I've left it there. It's hard to tell that it's a 60' cliff, but I think it makes it a little easier to see with the extra part of the climbing rope.

Funny you mention the angle of the photo... I actually shot it rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise, looking straight down. The camera automatically flipped it, and I became fond of the new angle.



But, after seeing it cropped and flipped... you might be onto something.

Here's flipped without a crop:



Well, I certainly can't decide which looks the best.

asd

I like it better flipped the way you've done above - it feels like I'm looking over the edge at the climber.