Critique Help with a Christmas Present!

[LewisFitz]

Hello all,

My girlfriend and I spent some time travelling around Ireland back in August. Between us we took many photos, and I've selected these 4 to put in a frame to give her as a Christmas present.

I've tweaked them all in aperture but I don't know what I'm doing, so I'd appreciate it if anyone would like to suggest anything that I could improve before I go and get them printed tomorrow.

Better half on Slea Head Drive:

Yours truly near Bunratty Castle:

Dingle Harbour:

Brandon Point:

Thanks!

(edit due to somehow submitting thread before I'd finished writing it, then forgetting my flickr log-in then forgetting my yahoo login, then forgetting how to embed photos from google )

 

[Leroy4bz]

I'm no expert but as nobody else has commented, I'll give you my two peneth...No#1 looks soft, I would make a tighter crop 2 and 3, getting rid of the yellow buildings and cropping out that thing next to the red boat. The last one has a purple colour cast which shows up more in the water. Hope that's of some help, but as I said in the beginning "I'm no expert" I'm sure she'll love them what ever you choose.

 

[Mr Perceptive]

I'd straighten them all, nothing like a wonky horizon to make your teeth grate on a printed/framed photo

I would also crop out or clone out bloke on No3 unless he is relevant to you/your girlfriend.

I agree with Leroy, one is soft and would benefit from a tighter crop, also agree with his other comments, but I'm also 'no expert'

The ultimate test is whether you are happy with the resultant images, they obviously have meaning to you, we can only look at them from a technical point of view

Hope that helps

 

[LewisFitz]

Thanks very much for your replies folks. I was that busy trying to make the pictures stand out a bit more that I totally forgot about the squinty horizons! I'll adjust those and see about cropping no. 1.

As for the yellow buildings, she took that photo herself and enjoyed the mixture of colours that building brought into it. I'll see how the boats look without the platform in the background. Again she took that one and liked the man walking up the pier.

I'll see if I can remove the cast in no. 4, i'm not quite sure how but I'll try. How can I help with the "softness" of no. 1?

Thanks again!

 

[abandonedbritain]

To add to what the other have said, 1 and 3 seem a little under exposed to me, could do with brightening a little, maybe just my monitor though?

To help with softness, if you have lightroom you should be able to sharpen them a little.

Id also play about with the vibrancy of them to try and make them pop a bit more, 1 and 3 in particular

 

[Leroy4bz]

Thanks very much for your replies folks. I was that busy trying to make the pictures stand out a bit more that I totally forgot about the squinty horizons! I'll adjust those and see about cropping no. 1.

Again she took that one and liked the man walking up the pier.

I'll see if I can remove the cast in no. 4, i'm not quite sure how but I'll try. How can I help with the "softness" of no. 1?

Thanks again!

 

[Leroy4bz]

Keep the man, lose the platform. I just zoomed the platform out, and the picture looked more balanced. You cannot sharpen an out of focus image, but contrast and colours could be tweaked to make it appear sharper.I did crop in Close on her, makes it a totallly different image, give it try. Do a quick YouTube on correcting colour balance.