Wehey

[ShawWellPete]

http://gallery.talkphotography.co.uk/data/500/medium/summer-1-1.jpg

You don't see many family pics on this site but, to be honest, that is what I'm mostly trying to improve. I am trying to get away from the cliched shots of my kids. Any comments on how to improve this or suggestions for other types of shots or set ups would be appreciated...

[Double_Agent]

I like the idea, the angle, the capture itself. Just a pity you got lens flare on it.

The picture doesnt seem to be really sharp where its needed either.

My 2p's worth.

[ShawWellPete]

Hi DA thanks for taking the time. How do you think I could have done it differently to improve the photo? (if you assume very little knowledge you wont be far wrong)
I lay on my back with the camera on timer on the floor next to me. I set the focus manually before putting it on the floor by autofusing on my hand with a straight arm and then locking the focus. I set quite a narrow aperture F/18 I think to give me a wide DOF. I used an external flash and set the exposure for the sky.

Any advice on how I should have taken it or what processing I should do to make it better?

By lens flare do you mean the sun spots? naively I quite like that...

[CT]

The biggest problem is the skin tones are excessively red, and it doesn't look critically sharp, which could simply be down to no sharpening after you've reduced the image for web viewing which should always be done, as the image loses definition in the reduction. I quite like the flare, I think it suits the shot, it's not excessive, and I'd leave it.

Quick adjust of the colour balance and brightness and an overall sharpen. :)

http://gallery.talkphotography.co.uk/data/530/summer-1-2.jpg

[RobertP]

Now you have explained what you did it seems quite a clever idea :)

Manual focus is a good approach there but his head is closer than your hand and hence a bit OOF. Boils down to guesswork and trial and error really.

When you put the camera down if you could se the sun hitting the lens - that would be the cause of the flare. You need something to put the camera in the shade. (and yes lens flare can look ok sometimes).

I'll leave processing comments to the experts. The flash light looks a bit too localised so maybe a diffuser might help.

Edit: you leave typing your post to eat a sandwich and along comes an expert :)

[ShawWellPete]

Thanks for that, the original is here http://www.villabegur.com/wehey-1.jpg
I think part of the problem is in the way I save for web. I basically just export from Elements 4 organiser and set a smaller size.
What would be better?

[Diego Garcia]

Peter, here is my effort. Hope this helps. :)

Critically, I took the tiredness out from under his eyes with the patch tool. With children it is easy to find good replacement skin of the same tone and smoothness. See the difference? I also patched above his lip to loose some of the wet from a runny nose. I used a high contrast curve and put a blue cooling photo filter on it to bring the back ground to life and lower the skin tone. A bit of burn and dodge to bring his lovely eyes out and finally I put an inverse feathered guassian blur around the child and the arms, plus a small sharpen. On the first example I added a glow, always nice with children.

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/8269/wehey1copy317pb.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

And on this one, a selective focus on your lad.

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/1769/wehey1copy3113vh.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[ShawWellPete]

Hi Diego,

That looks fantastic, thanks for taking the time. I'll try to replicate what you've done so I may come back with some questions.

Cheers

Pete

[Forbiddenbiker]

Lovely shot Peter, good thought and effort that paid off well I think. Good to see something different as well. :thumbs:

TFS.

[ShawWellPete]

Peter, here is my effort. Hope this helps. :)

Critically, I took the tiredness out from under his eyes with the patch tool. With children it is easy to find good replacement skin of the same tone and smoothness. See the difference? I also patched above his lip to loose some of the wet from a runny nose. I used a high contrast curve and put a blue cooling photo filter on it to bring the back ground to life and lower the skin tone. A bit of burn and dodge to bring his lovely eyes out and finally I put an inverse feathered guassian blur around the child and the arms, plus a small sharpen. On the first example I added a glow, always nice with children.

I have been trying to replicate this, which is a great tutorial for a beginner.
1. The patch tool I'd never used - fantastic tool and easy to use
2. The high contrast curve - is that done by adding a curves adjustment layer and creating a "s" shaped curve? - didn't have much success
3. The blue filter was great for the background but seemed to make his face a bit blue too.
4. Burn and dodge - again, I'd never used this. I used the dodge to lighten the eyes slightly - nice tool!
5. inverse feathered guassian blur - couldn't find this
6. Glow - again couldn't find this

Thanks very much for the feedback, if you or any other helpful expert could guide me in the right direction that would be great.

[Diego Garcia]

OK Pete. i will try and help.

For the blue filter, select image, adjustments, photofilter and then select cool filter, it should revert to blue. There are three variants to try.

For the high contrast curve, PM me your email me and I will send you my default curves.

For the gaussian blur, use the lasso to draw around the subject, then go select > feather, it will open a box asking for a number then input one so that the lassoo crawling ants just overlaps the inside edge of your subject. Once happy go select > inverse as this will select only the image outside the other selection and the edge of the picture. Then go filter > blur and choose your blur. Guassian is usually good for this and select how much you wish to blur. 4 - 8 is usually enough to throw the backdrop out.

Finally, for the glow, down load picassa from here

http://www.get-photo-software.com/?gclid=CPzYr4mYioYCFTVpEgodenqthg

And open your pic, and then use the glow option in effects and then select file save a copy and undone the original so you can compare them.

Its the quick way for an effective glow.

Hope this helps for now,

Diego.