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- Edit My Images
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So these are some of my more fonder shoots and was looking for feedback - I want to one day make this more than just a hobby and would appreciate truthful and honest opinions. Thank-you.
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Important: the Server Hamster is in need of a bit of TLC so the site will be off line for a while on Friday morning, the 17th
Beginner looking for some feedback ☺
- Thread starter stardesigns
- Start date
- Messages
- 4,911
- Name
- Simon
- Edit My Images
- No
Hello & welcome!
For a beginner you’ve made a good start. They’re largely sharp, well exposed and nicely composed.
There are three areas for improvement – lighting - or awareness of the ambient light you have - processing and interaction. IME the last one is the hardest and most important. Interaction matters less if we can see what the subject is doing or looking at, but we can't really in some of those.
I won't dissect them all. That said
#2 Is cute, but has very flat light and weird processing has introduced some artefacts. I think there’s probably a cracking pic in there somewhere.
#5 is nice but it looks as though you’ve just missed a better moment. It’s marginally underexposed and I think it would benefit from either a tighter or a much looser crop.
hth
For a beginner you’ve made a good start. They’re largely sharp, well exposed and nicely composed.
There are three areas for improvement – lighting - or awareness of the ambient light you have - processing and interaction. IME the last one is the hardest and most important. Interaction matters less if we can see what the subject is doing or looking at, but we can't really in some of those.
I won't dissect them all. That said
#2 Is cute, but has very flat light and weird processing has introduced some artefacts. I think there’s probably a cracking pic in there somewhere.
#5 is nice but it looks as though you’ve just missed a better moment. It’s marginally underexposed and I think it would benefit from either a tighter or a much looser crop.
hth
- Messages
- 21
- Name
- Ludovic
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Hello,
1/ The desaturation is a good idea, but you are cut the chin and this isn't a good idea, next the depth of field is too short
2/ Your picture is good, I would have added a teddy bear for example (un doudou, I don't know the word in English). but it's nice!
3/ I like this, I just find his face a little dark, perhaps to try with your flash.
4/ It's original, but the subject is too tight, feet and arm are cut
5/ You took a good moment between father and son, like the fourth, I think it's too tight, and focusing should be on the children's eye.
You have good ideas, try to continu.
1/ The desaturation is a good idea, but you are cut the chin and this isn't a good idea, next the depth of field is too short
2/ Your picture is good, I would have added a teddy bear for example (un doudou, I don't know the word in English). but it's nice!
3/ I like this, I just find his face a little dark, perhaps to try with your flash.
4/ It's original, but the subject is too tight, feet and arm are cut
5/ You took a good moment between father and son, like the fourth, I think it's too tight, and focusing should be on the children's eye.
You have good ideas, try to continu.
- Messages
- 25,342
- Name
- Phil
- Edit My Images
- No
What Simon said, these are a great start (TBH I've seen worse produced by people who are actually taking bookings - not that they should be)
But as you've asked a few more details:
1. Spot colour is something everyone tries, you'll look back at this and cringe one day, the light on the shot is patchy (chin overexposed - eyes underexposed), it's not sharp and drawing attention to the 'colour' isn't helping that.
2. What Simon said, there's possibly a good shot there if it's shot raw and processed properly
3. great idea but lacks the connection
4. again, a great idea but it lacks connection - shoot from lower and a little looser (shoudn't really cut off hands and feet), a bit more time spent and there's have been a great pic here
5. What Simon said
Keep at it, there's some great creativity on show that just needs some practice to really get there.
But as you've asked a few more details:
1. Spot colour is something everyone tries, you'll look back at this and cringe one day, the light on the shot is patchy (chin overexposed - eyes underexposed), it's not sharp and drawing attention to the 'colour' isn't helping that.
2. What Simon said, there's possibly a good shot there if it's shot raw and processed properly
3. great idea but lacks the connection
4. again, a great idea but it lacks connection - shoot from lower and a little looser (shoudn't really cut off hands and feet), a bit more time spent and there's have been a great pic here
5. What Simon said
Keep at it, there's some great creativity on show that just needs some practice to really get there.
- Messages
- 4,911
- Name
- Simon
- Edit My Images
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Phil is much better at focusing on the positive than me. I agree completely - good start, keep at it.
OP
- Messages
- 19
- Edit My Images
- No
Lighting is definitely one of my bigger issues, I completely agree! If I'm honest it's one of the things I am very much struggling with, I find natural lighting that bit easier but for some of the shoots I'm trying to achieve natural wouldn't be possible (at least, I assume it wouldn't be anyways!) Thank-you again for the link posted in a previous thread as that is going to help me greatly!
Thank-you! This was a very quick snap which was taken poorly and I was devastated that I didn't catch it as good as I could have with maybe a bit more thought, however chasing toddlers, it all needs to be a bit more speedy! Thank-you for the suggestion with the Teddy also, I wasn't sure whether maybe that would have been too much of a distraction, but I will definitely try that next time!
In all honesty I do prefer the original image I took with the paint (will attach below), but thought I would be a little adventurous with this one! I'm not very confident with my editing skills at the moment, which is again something I'm working massively on! (photoshop for dummies is the sort of level I am on currently, lol) and I think this is my biggest downfall with #2. It was the first time I'd tried to do a newborn photo, and I have maybe 7-10 photos I am happy with out of about 200. Lighting again is something which didn't help me here. At the moment I just have the standard camera flash which I found too harsh, and indoor lights just didn't compliment the pose. And with the last image I think I've maybe tried a little too hard to get rid of unwanted background.
All of your feedback has been really helpful! I have all the images in RAW so I can definitely go in an edit a little better as soon as I'm a bit more confident. These are the original, unedited images. I wonder what editing you would suggest?
- Messages
- 4,911
- Name
- Simon
- Edit My Images
- No
#1.. is underexposed and the white balance is off. Once you've addressed those then you might feel the need to tweak the hue or saturation of the reds; newborns can often look excessively purple. Or you may prefer the natural look, it's up to you of course. The skin tone in the original post isn't bad though.
#2.. If I had to save it I'd boost the exposure and correct the white balance - it's a bit blue. If you can't recover the highlights from another copy of the raw file on another layer then I'd crop tight on the eyes and nose. It would be possible to reconstruct the blown areas using a mixture of cloning & frequency separation but that's pretty sophisticated stuff and a lot of work.
OP
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- 19
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Thank-you! Will take this all on board! You've been a massive help [emoji5]
- Messages
- 25,342
- Name
- Phil
- Edit My Images
- No
The newborn one is definitely salvageable - if you can find a way of making the raw available I reckon you'll get a volunteer to sort it for you.
The paint one though? Given the eyes aren't sharp and the overexposed chin - it's a dud I'm afraid. I can see how the parent would love it, but as a photograph it has no merit - sorry.
- Messages
- 25,342
- Name
- Phil
- Edit My Images
- No
Back to this...
The skill to pick up as a photographer (easy too) is to learn to 'see' the light, we judge light by it's direction, colour and hardness/ softness. Oddly we see the hardness by looking at shadows not the lit area.
Rule 1. There's one sun, it's above us. So an on camera flash pointed directly at a subject is already coming from the wrong direction - it's also a small light source so it's hard, the room lighting in this image is coming from the right direction, is soft (I'd guess it's lighting a white ceiling) and the white fleece is acting as a natural reflector, you've accidentally caught some nice(ish) light*. The downside is the colour temperature - but that's fixable. I wouldn't worry too much about the texture in the background, it's only an issue if you've been trained to believe the Venture white BG look is 'right'.
*improving on that would be fiddly and time consuming, maybe expensive too
The good news is that I'd be happy with 10 images from a newborn session, the difference of course is that there'd probably be more consistency in my rejects.
OP
- Messages
- 19
- Edit My Images
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I agree with the paint, as a parent the image is super cute, but I wouldn't be happy if this was a professional shoot. Hopefully I can get a bit more guidance on how to use photoshop or lightroom to do the newborn one myself, as there's a few more images that I need to touch up! Thank-you!
- Messages
- 4,911
- Name
- Simon
- Edit My Images
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One quick approach:
- In LR Use the histogram - increase exposure until the graph spreads out across the whole range.
- Set white balance to tungsten - or whatever the lighting was. If the blanket was pure white you could use the WB eyedropper tool on that.
- Take into PS
- Duplicate layer, content aware fill the black patches at the edges of the frame
- add hue / saturation adjustment layer. Select reds and tweak hue & saturation until happy. Then reduce the opacity a bit.
- Flatten, save, back to lightroom and export as desired
Top tip, worth doing now: make sure your monitor isn't too bright and calibrate it with something like an XRite or ColorMunki.
OP
- Messages
- 19
- Edit My Images
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These are just photos I've stored in jpeg on my phone so the quality of these are pretty poor anyways, I will have an experiment on the laptop later on this evening and give these things a go and will post the end result [emoji5] thank-you again!