Need advice for this photo for a parent

KrazyKevin

Basketball shots are tough, we know this. But I limited the size of my shots to 11x14 so people wouldn't want to blow em up big and see the noise. I have a shot that a parent wants. It is very soft. She knows that, she saw the large pic on smugmug: http://www.lifeactionphotos.com/photos/127214523-L.jpg

Would you guys try to make it a little sharper? When I try it gets noisey. With a pic of this size, 11x14, since you'll be further away from the pic, will it look better? What are your experiences with indoor basketball pics at high ISO's and no flash? These were shot with the 85mm 1.8 prime with a D50. My wife wants it sharper. I want to leave it as is, thinking the size of the print will make the softness better, and I don't want to deal with even more noise. Help me!!!! The original pic can be found here:
http://www.krazykev.com/misc/In_Flight.jpg

Does anyone think I can go bigger. This woman wants a poster if I'd give it to her!!!!!! Maybe 16x20?

JESTER

Sorry, I agree with your wife. Although I agree it is a nice action shot and I am sure mother is very proud of, it is not sharp enough to enlarge to a very large picture, especially a poster!

KrazyKevin

what is the largest that you think would be safe? I'm thinking about making a 11x14 just to see.

Jeffro

KrazyKevin wrote:

what is the largest that you think would be safe? I'm thinking about making a 11x14 just to see.

It is soft...and it may not look very good on the wall. Order an 11x14 and see how it turns out, that will give you the answer.

Here's a way to avoid that in the future. Don't let people see your "soft side"

I always, always look at every event photo...full size...before I post it. I chuck all the OOF or soft shots...even if the action in it was very cool. You have to let your best show. I get more and more critical with each season, and I hope that's a good thing.

KrazyKevin

I thought about it a while and decided to go ahead and order a 11x14 to see how it looks. I'm looking at it this way, its an "almost perfect" shot for me, but the "perfect" shot for the parent. To us photographers, yeah, its out of focus, but to the mom, she is in heaven, even after I told her that it was going to be soft and out of focus. I had to talk her into to us just ordering the 11x14 and seeing how it looks. Even after telling her the bad news, she still wants a bigger pic.

So, if I would have culled this pic, then there wouldn't be a sell at all. But as it stands, I've made a parent happy. If this was a posed pic, then yeah, no way I would have kept. But, since it was on the fly action, I think things are gonna work out fine. I'll keep everyone updated.

Thanks for the suggestions

kevin

Jeffro

This parent may be happy, but remember she will show it to others. Think about how they will view it too. They might think, wow, that shot is OOF, who shot that? I try to eliminate that reaction.

Be sure to let us know if you were pleased with the 11x14.

johng

I'm with Jeffro on this one. It needs to be sharper for a large print. The larger the print the more evident the softness becomes. I'd suggest sharpening it and applying very critical noise reduction. Spend 1/2 hour cleaning it up. Jeffro's point is right on the money - this parent may be happy because it's THEIR kid in the photo so of course they like it. A friend or relative is not so impressed by who is in the photo but by the quality of it. Again, no reason why you can't use layers to selectively apply/remove the noise reduction to keep detail where you need it (muscle tone/skin) which is where the noise is less evident anyway.

galaxycowpoke

For sports, I tend to only proof my sharp shots, too, discarding all else.

But if the mother's happy, why deny her?

Sharpness is also relative, and there's good background blur. And you could even add more background blur to make the shooter relatively sharper.

Also some softness can be appealing on a human subject.

I see people pay big bucks for really crappy shots every week from other photogs. And those people keep selling.

So I doubt your reputation will fail because of the few who view this photo. Who knows, they might even seek you out. It really surprises me now little most people know about evaluating a good photograph.

But this one is not bad at all. It could be sharper, sure. But overall, there's a lot to recommend it. Who's to say you didn't add the slight blur post-production for artistic effect?

You could even argue that the slight blur increases the feeling of motion. Sometimes sharpness is really overrated.

Now if it had a bad color cast, you might have a hard time arguing that you were going for an artistic CSI: Miami look.

P.S. I just looked at the original and prefer the first smaller web image. Looks as if the whole thing is sharper. I would selectively sharpen just the shooter if you go that route.

CookieS

If they want poster, than add an artsitc look, and make it a ARTposter. heres a quick idea on a crop just to give you an idea. you could ad his name or team. put a layer of motion blur on the crowd, and leave your player sharper. just an idea

CookieS

here it is

pahl

Cookies, I like that idea.
Looks great!

saurora

Cookies, that's a nice save!!!

MJRPHOTO

KrazyKevin wrote:

Basketball shots are tough, we know this. But I limited the size of my shots to 11x14 so people wouldn't want to blow em up big and see the noise. I have a shot that a parent wants. It is very soft. She knows that, she saw the large pic on smugmug: http://www.lifeactionphotos.com/photos/127214523-L.jpg

Would you guys try to make it a little sharper? When I try it gets noisey. With a pic of this size, 11x14, since you'll be further away from the pic, will it look better? What are your experiences with indoor basketball pics at high ISO's and no flash? These were shot with the 85mm 1.8 prime with a D50. My wife wants it sharper. I want to leave it as is, thinking the size of the print will make the softness better, and I don't want to deal with even more noise. Help me!!!! The original pic can be found here:
http://www.krazykev.com/misc/In_Flight.jpg

Does anyone think I can go bigger. This woman wants a poster if I'd give it to her!!!!!! Maybe 16x20?

I am in the same situation right now. I have printed the shot at the 11x14 and will let the parent decide.

slapshot

beauty is in the eye of the beholder

I doubt any mother or grandmother, brother, father, sister, cousin, uncle, etc will tell you this image is "soft"

it reminds me of the first image I ever sold, of a ten year old handling the puck in a roller hockey game...I could point out various technical problems with the photo, but the parents loved it and to them it was worth every penny

my point is, don't ever forget your audience...there is no absolute measurement of what makes a great image

KrazyKevin

Thank you all. I do see the point of someone saying the print is oof. But, if you start getting into that, well now your talking about every single pic. You can't please everyone all the time. I'd rather make the mom happy and loose sells to someone that would snub it. If they check out my site, I think they would see that 95% or more of my pics are sharp. It was just one of those pics.

The pictures did come in. Overall I am very very happy with them. The prints match whats been posted pretty closely. The oof on the 16x20 is really no more noticable than the 11x14. As soon as I catch up with the mom I'll let yall know her reaction.

Cookie, I like that poster. How did you get that streaking effect?
Re-read your first post, is it just motion blur?

Thanks all

Kevin

Rene`

Editing
I am with Kevin. Sometime we photographers are too critical. Many of the photos that I have sold aren't the ones that I thought would sell. If parents see their kid getting a winning pin....they don't care if you can't see there face. If we culled every shot that wasn't perfect lots of mamas wouldn't be happy.... and you know what they say about Mama being Happy.

I love the look that Cookie applied to the photo.... would love to know how.

KrazyKevin wrote:

Thank you all. I do see the point of someone saying the print is oof. But, if you start getting into that, well now your talking about every single pic. You can't please everyone all the time. I'd rather make the mom happy and loose sells to someone that would snub it. If they check out my site, I think they would see that 95% or more of my pics are sharp. It was just one of those pics.

The pictures did come in. Overall I am very very happy with them. The prints match whats been posted pretty closely. The oof on the 16x20 is really no more noticable than the 11x14. As soon as I catch up with the mom I'll let yall know her reaction.

Cookie, I like that poster. How did you get that streaking effect?
Re-read your first post, is it just motion blur?

I am with Kevin. Sometime we photographers are too critical. Many of the photos that I have sold aren't the ones that I thought would sell. If parents see their kid getting a winning pin....they don't care if you can't see there face. If we culled every shot that wasn't perfect lots of mamas wouldn't be happy.... and you know what they say about Mama being Happy.

I love the look that Cookie applied to the photo.... would love to know how.



Thanks all

Kevin

johng

Rene` wrote:

I am with Kevin. Sometime we photographers are too critical. Many of the photos that I have sold aren't the ones that I thought would sell. If parents see their kid getting a winning pin....they don't care if you can't see there face. If we culled every shot that wasn't perfect lots of mamas wouldn't be happy.... and you know what they say about Mama being Happy.

I love the look that Cookie applied to the photo.... would love to know how.

Actually 2 thoughts on this.

1. The original question posted was - should I sharpen the photo. And I still stand by my original reply tthat yes selective sharpening would definitely improve the photo. You know there is a desire to order a large print so it's worth investing some time/energy to make it as good as it could be.

2. In regards to making parents happy. In my experience parents want pictures of their kids primarily. Secondary is showing their kids doing something cool. So the key to making moms happy is giving them a selection of photos with their kids in them. That means trying to get a number of shots of each kid. If you have 10 shots of a kid and throw out 3 the mom will still be happy and get what she wants - a great picture of her kid - she'll never know their were 3 other photos of her kid that turned out bad. So the key is really to take ENOUGH photos that you can have quality photos of each kid for mom to choose from. Now, if you only end up with 3 photos and 1 is slightly out of focus it may be fine to keep it - because you want the selection to be there (some people won't buy a single photo - they want several to make it worth their while). So, I try to have 6 or so photos of each kid. If you end up with a dozen then it's time to be very critical of each - don't include 8 good and 4 bad - 8 good will make mom happy and still not put bad photos on display.

Finally - I would agree this photo would probably stay in the gallery because it is a good shot. It is acceptably sharp (but could be improved with sharpening) but shows great action.