Kari BTR Update

cmorganphotography

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Art Scott

some really nice shotsbowthumbclap but I only see 6................. not 8

cmorganphotography

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Scott_Quier

#1 isn't doing anything for me. I would look to straighten the horizon - small detail but that hit me right away.

#2 - I LOVE this shot! I love the glow of light on her face and the mystery in her eyes! To better emphasize all that, I think I would crop this a bit closer to her face. I would also get rid of the stick/branch on the right of the frame.

The rest of the time aren't doing it for me either - but I may be (probably am) challenged.

#3, #5 - Watch for thing growing out of the head!

cmorganphotography

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Scott_Quier

cmorganphotography wrote:

If I had photoshop I would take care of all her unicorn horns. I'm glad you love the impromptu use of the scarves. She was cold [#2] If I do any straightening in iphoto it makes the picture blurring without any hope of salvation.
The first one was #8 from the other post that people said could use the most work and be a usable picture.
Thank you for the critique, I wish I could do those things. I might be able t blur out the stick in #2 but can't get rid of the others.

I understand budgets. How about a copy of Photoshop Elements - I believe you can do all the above. It can be had from NewEgg.com for about $75.00 (link).

cmorganphotography

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Nikolai

I like this set better than the original. And I second most of the comments above.

One thing I noticed and what I teach my models not to do unless explicitly told so (there are exceptions, of course, but that's usually advanced stuff, see below...) is "not to look with their eyes".
What I mean is if I tell my model to look somewhere, she's supposed to turn the whole head in that direction, not just roll her eyes over there. Some eyes movement may obviously be required, but when the head and the direction of the eyes get grossly out of sync it usually looks plain ugly.
Exceptions: drama, horror, pinup, and other very special cases. But even those still require a complete control over what goes where...

cmorganphotography

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evoryware

Yeah these look better to me. I like 2 and 5.

Richard

cmorganphotography wrote:

I'll look into it though, seems cheap enough and if it has clone and heal and some blur I think I'm golden.

Elements is quite powerful. Most of what you learn there will carry over nicely into Photoshop CSx when you are ready to make the jump. You will be at a tremendous disadvantage as a professional if you only have iPhoto as an editor. Also, Adobe generally offers a reduced price on Photoshop if you are upgrading from Elements. I understand fully that even 75 dollars can be a stretch at times, but I would encourage you to make this a top priority. Nothing else will give you as much bang for the buck.

Cheers,

cmorganphotography

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cmorganphotography

Richard wrote:

Elements is quite powerful. Most of what you learn there will carry over nicely into Photoshop CSx when you are ready to make the jump. You will be at a tremendous disadvantage as a professional if you only have iPhoto as an editor. Also, Adobe generally offers a reduced price on Photoshop if you are upgrading from Elements. I understand fully that even 75 dollars can be a stretch at times, but I would encourage you to make this a top priority. Nothing else will give you as much bang for the buck.

Cheers,

Iphoto isn't much but it gets me by as an amateur. Do you have any experience with Aperture? I was thinking about going that route period. It's around 200 for the version I want. I'm not all that familiar with photoshop and it's tools but I know you can do just about anything with photoshop.
I'll do some more research, if you'll offer your opinion.

rhommel

i understand you wanna protect your images.. but the watermark running all over the image is a bit annoying.. maybe it's just me..

cmorganphotography

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Richard

cmorganphotography wrote:

Iphoto isn't much but it gets me by as an amateur. Do you have any experience with Aperture? I was thinking about going that route period. It's around 200 for the version I want. I'm not all that familiar with photoshop and it's tools but I know you can do just about anything with photoshop.
I'll do some more research, if you'll offer your opinion.

I run Windows, so I have no experience with Aperture. Both Apple and Adobe offer 30 day trial versions of their software, so you could check them both out for yourself. You should probably also look at Lightroom, from Adobe. Lots of discussion can be found by searching on the Photo Finish forum, BTW. Personally, I use Photoshop CS3, which comes with Bridge and ACR; it is the most powerful of all, but it is also the most expensive.

Nikolai

Richard wrote:

I run Windows, so I have no experience with Aperture. Both Apple and Adobe offer 30 day trial versions of their software, so you could check them both out for yourself. You should probably also look at Lightroom, from Adobe. Lots of discussion can be found by searching on the Photo Finish forum, BTW. Personally, I use Photoshop CS3, which comes with Bridge and ACR; it is the most powerful of all, but it is also the most expensive.

on all accounts.

rhommel

cmorganphotography wrote:

I realize it's annoying and I'm in process of finding a watermark that protects my images on this forum as well as not being so intrusive. Just bear with me.
Do you know how to make the see-through watermarks on photoshop or point me in a good direction? I want one that looks like it's embossed o nthe image without any colour... but no idea how to make it.

you are using Elements, right? you can create a custom brush with your watermark..

http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/elements/watermarking.html

you may also wanna check these out
http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshopelements/ht/psewatermark.htm
http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/blog/2008/2/22/photoshop-friday-batch-processing-in-photoshop-elements-resi.html (i like this one)

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBS_enCA271CA271&q=photoshop+elements+watermark

cmorganphotography

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cmorganphotography

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rhommel

i think most, if not all professional photographers use photoshop. a lot of wedding photographers use lightroom because of it's presets..

photoshop is worth every penny, imho. aside from your camera gear, it is the one of the best investments u'll ever make

cmorganphotography

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Richard

cmorganphotography wrote:

I take it Lightroom is like aperture in that it is the first step to quickly color correct and minor fix pics in prep for the big show: photoshop. Photoshop is where you do the major surgery and play.

Lightroom and Aperture are primarily RAW converters, as is ACR (Adobe Camera RAW). They are mainly used to make global changes in exposure, white balance, color and contrast, though as time goes on they are all acquiring additional tricks. If you are shooting well to start with, many shots will not need any further work. But Photoshop has a vast assortment of tools to work on selected portions of an image in different ways. So, for example, in portrait shooting you would use the RAW converter to adjust the overall color balance and exposure but use Photoshop to sharpen the eyes and retouch skin imperfections.

If I got Photoshop elements, does that apply to a purchase of big game Photoshop... someone mentioned that somewhere.

Check Adobe's Web site to be sure, but that's the way it used to work.

Seems Photoshop is, indeed, the only way to go. Especially if I ever want to jump into the big ocean waters of professional photography

Some people use both Lightroom/Aperture and Photoshop, as Photoshop does not have a database to catalog pics. Others (like me) prefer to use other products to manage the catalog. But Photoshop itself is pretty much mandatory for professional work.

rhommel

Richard wrote:

Others (like me) prefer to use other products to manage the catalog. But Photoshop itself is pretty much mandatory for professional work.

Photoshop does have Adobe Bridge..

cmorganphotography

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Richard

rhommel wrote:

Photoshop does have Adobe Bridge..

Yes, and I use Bridge for culling and managing my workflow. As of the CS3 version, it works fine for that, though IMO the earlier versions were poor. But it isn't up to the task of managing a large and complex catalog, as it has no persistent database. It wasn't designed for that.

rhommel

Richard wrote:

Yes, and I use Bridge for culling and managing my workflow. As of the CS3 version, it works fine for that, though IMO the earlier versions were poor. But it isn't up to the task of managing a large and complex catalog, as it has no persistent database. It wasn't designed for that.

you are right. i can't compare lightroom with bridge. what i was trying to point out is for her to get the photoshop, because it comes with Bridge and RAW.. instead of getting lightroom alone..

dlplumer

Since you ar a mac user, as am I, I strongly suggest you replace iPhoto with Aperture 2. You will find that 99% of your PP can be done with Aperture and it's plug-ins....and it only costs $200

cmorganphotography

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jeffreaux2

cmorganphotography wrote:

Hey! Another *smart* person! hehehe mac-users unite!
My two main concerns with Aperture is the ability to take out blemishes on a fairly small scale, like a hand-full of pixels or on a pixel by pixel basis. The other is the cloning. I'm not a good photographer but I'm learning. I would like to remove a giant zit on a client's face and remove an entire building face if it's looking at my cock-eyed. The rest of the stuff in photoshop I either don't know how to use it or it looks like fluff, it's there and it's neat but now you're just getting crazy with the features.
DOes Aperture do that?
I did reallllly like the workflow features and the ability to do whatever you want to the image but the original RAW remains untouched but all the edits eat up virtually no space, like playlists on an ipod. It's data but not gigs and gigs of extra info.

If you can tell me I can bleep out blemishes and remove renegade trees I'll be getting some Aperture and using that mainly and look into photoshop elements as well. If I can get around buying 300 bucks worth of stuff and only spend 80... that would be good. I'm hoping aperture is more comprehensive and well rounded than it is... I fear.

If it is available for MAC,......The Gimp.....is free...open source software that is very near photoshop. You can do all of what you are saying with photoshop elements at less that $100. Photoshop elements will also give you adobe camera raw (ACR) for RAW processing. Shooting RAW is a must if you are truely serious about photography.

dlplumer

cmorganphotography wrote:

Hey! Another *smart* person! hehehe mac-users unite!
My two main concerns with Aperture is the ability to take out blemishes on a fairly small scale, like a hand-full of pixels or on a pixel by pixel basis. The other is the cloning. I'm not a good photographer but I'm learning. I would like to remove a giant zit on a client's face and remove an entire building face if it's looking at my cock-eyed. The rest of the stuff in photoshop I either don't know how to use it or it looks like fluff, it's there and it's neat but now you're just getting crazy with the features.
DOes Aperture do that?
I did reallllly like the workflow features and the ability to do whatever you want to the image but the original RAW remains untouched but all the edits eat up virtually no space, like playlists on an ipod. It's data but not gigs and gigs of extra info.

If you can tell me I can bleep out blemishes and remove renegade trees I'll be getting some Aperture and using that mainly and look into photoshop elements as well. If I can get around buying 300 bucks worth of stuff and only spend 80... that would be good. I'm hoping aperture is more comprehensive and well rounded than it is... I fear.

Aperture is great for blemishes and cloning and much more. You cannot remove and place objects like you can with PS. Even if you buy PS, you should buy Aperture (1st) in my view. It is a thousand times more powerful than iPhoto, and it's RAW processing is excellent.:D