[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger 

critique this

F*ck the others. I love this shot. The only thing I could critique about it is the blurry foot.

Undersaturated? I'm Mr. Bloody Saturate-Everything myself and I love it. Colours and tonal range and mood is perfect!

And yes. The bag works too. It's behind her.

IMHO, a perfect fashion shot.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by cszar2001 

OK - here's another one from today that should be more mainstream:

I love this.



bigger

[Rampant1]

An early morning shot along the Big River at Morse Mill, Missouri. Had stopped at the park on a whim and was pleasantly rewarded with this and other similar shots. Snapped with Nikon D40 at F9 for 1/125 sec.

[Goldfinger]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

F*ck the others. I love this shot. The only thing I could critique about it is the blurry foot.

Undersaturated? I'm Mr. Bloody Saturate-Everything myself and I love it. Colours and tonal range and mood is perfect!

And yes. The bag works too. It's behind her.

IMHO, a perfect fashion shot.

Thx, the low saturation is my new "style" that I've been experimenting with the last few weeks. It fits the clothes, the only thing that's desaturated is the sky by the way.
Agreed about the blurry foot but I don't mind it too much. 1/250 is just a tad slow to completely freeze this kind of action.
It's indeed meant as an outdoor fashion shot for the weekly school assignment.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger 

Thx, the low saturation is my new "style" that I've been experimenting with the last few weeks. It fits the clothes, the only thing that's desaturated is the sky by the way.
Agreed about the blurry foot but I don't mind it too much. 1/250 is just a tad slow to completely freeze this kind of action.
It's indeed meant as an outdoor fashion shot for the weekly school assignment.

Really nice with the saturation. I personally am not sure about the lighting setup, the sun behind and then the main source from the front (reflector or flash?) weirds me out a little. But that's personal taste. I do find that it distracts from what I should be concentrating on, the clothing. But all in all I really like the shot.

Talking of low saturation:

[Goldfinger]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

Really nice with the saturation. I personally am not sure about the lighting setup, the sun behind and then the main source from the front (reflector or flash?) weirds me out a little. But that's personal taste. I do find that it distracts from what I should be concentrating on, the clothing. But all in all I really like the shot.

Talking of low saturation:

Two flashes actually, camera left on a light stand about 2-3 meters and one on the floor under my camera (i'm on the floor as well).

[Jawbone54]

This is a fairly heavily-edited shot. I had some great skies to work with Friday, so that cloud formation is real, but I'm wondering how many of you would think that I ruined this shot by pulling up the shadows a lot and putting a bit more "pop" into it.



Here's two more from the round:

[Oisín]

Too much in the first one. Far too much. It looks like an HDR picture, or something that’s been through some of psycheledifying filter. Doesn’t look nice anymore.

I love the second one, and the added contrast (I’m guessing) in the sky in the third one works much better.

[Peter]

third photo rules.

[brassplayersrock²]

third one is indeed awesome

[RAILhead]

Yeah, nix the first one -- I like the others a lot.

[Jawbone54]

Oisín, that's kind of the feeling I got after finishing with it. I kept on saying, "Now I'm done," and then kept on tweaking and stretching until the result looked a bit too wild. I had gorgeous skies to work with all day in between my shots and tried to make them pop just a bit too much.

I'm going to re-edit it.

Thanks for the comments on the third, guys.

[Jawbone54]

Here it is with minimal editing. Just pulled up the shadows so that you can actually see him.

Better?

[Oisín]

Still looks unnaturally bright and shiny.

Were his clothes really fluorescent like that?

[Jawbone54]

His pants had a weird "shimmer" to them in the light. The reason everything is looking shiny is a result of bringing up the shadows. The foreground was considerably underexposed, so the work on the shadows was really the only way to make him visible.

[- - e r i k - -]

I say that shot is one for the bin. Sorry.

[Jawbone54]

Fair enough. No need in trying to force it if it just...won't...work.

[RAILhead]

Post the original and let's what kind of voodoo I can do on it.

[OreoCookie]

I don't like golf, but that is one beautiful shot, Jawbone!

@Goldfinger
I like your shot, too, although I'm not sure about the bag. The posture of the girl is like that of a dancer or ballerina, so the bag is superfluous. On the other hand, with a different kind of jump, the bag would be a welcome addition. (I'm just nitpicking, it's a very good shot!)

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Rampant1 

An early morning shot along the Big River at Morse Mill, Missouri. Had stopped at the park on a whim and was pleasantly rewarded with this and other similar shots. Snapped with Nikon D40 at F9 for 1/125 sec.

Sorry I missed this shot earlier. It really deserves to be viewed large. Really cool (hah!) shot!

Great job!

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

Post the original and let's what kind of voodoo I can do on it.

I'm PMing you the full-size JPG. I didn't want to kill someone with a massive image in this thread.

[RAILhead]

Not my most detailed work, but more of a proof of concept:



Notice the slight glow around him -- this was my fault for rushing, and all I should have done was drop the feather on the marquee. BUT, as I was rushing, I lost track of when I introduced it, so I didn't bother to start al over agai -- but you get the idea that recovery *is* possible. Printed out, this pic would look fine -- even at 8x10.

[Goldfinger]

Use layer masks, much easier than marquees and feathers IMHO. And much more control + reversable if you make any errors.

[RAILhead]

Trust me, I do that (over 15 years using PS). Like I said, I was hauling-butt to make a point.

[Goldfinger]

oh, ok
Consider it a general tip then.

[Jawbone54]

Nice work. I'd like the skies to have a little more snap to them, but I get the idea.

[RAILhead]

Yeah, I wasn't sure how much "striping" you wanted to the clouds to have against the sky, so I kept it subdued.

Fall in love with the Soft Light blending mode and circular white-to-transparent gradients. I don't remember every single step I took, but I remember these...


Selected just the guy at 15-30 feather, filled with white, the used Soft Light at around 20 to 40%.

I then erased the soft light layer on his pants because of color blocking

Used a radial gradient on his head o lighten his face

Used soft light at around 20% to boost contrast, overall.

Inverse selected the guy to Curve the sky to the slight blue

and so on...


I didn't mess with the grass at all, but you know how to boost crap like that already.

[Rampant1]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Sorry I missed this shot earlier. It really deserves to be viewed large. Really cool (hah!) shot!

Great job!

Thanks for the encouragement Erik — I may have to toss another shot or two in the mix

[Jawbone54]

Definitely do it, Rampant1. Keep posting.

And thanks, Railhead.

[RAILhead]

Please, call me Maury.



/got nothin'

[brassplayersrock²]

that candyland board game

[brassplayersrock²]

Candy Land - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[RAILhead]

Sorry, but it just looks sloppy to me. No messages or anything.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Tesselator 

Critique... But add how it makes you feel, what messages or stories if any it speaks to your mind.

[img]http://tesselator.gpmod.com/Private/_PICT1093Small.jpg[img] [img]http://tesselator.gpmod.com/Private/_Pict1093Small_Info.png[img]

I don't like this shot.

Noise in the sky is distracting. People out of focus. Trees are poorly framed. The "path/walk" is distracting and should be cropped out. DOF on the trees is too wide making them look flat.

What's the deal with the EXIF info?

[RAILhead]

This is really just a kind of funny shot rather than one for critique:

[- - e r i k - -]

AAAAAAACHOOO!

More portraits:

<original gone, scroll down>

[Oisín]

You seem to have found yourself a willing model (in more ways than one).

[- - e r i k - -]

Yes. She performs well on camera and off camera

[Jawbone54]

Really nice perspective. You caught a really good expression, and the hair is falling really nicely.

Are her eyes a bit soft? They seem very slightly out of focus. If you're working with a really shallow DOF, I understand that the eye on the left (her right) would be out, but not the right one. Or was that due to a slightly longer exposure?

Nitpicking aside, it's a good shot of a good subject. Ya lucky fella.

[Jawbone54]

Maury, what lens were you testing? Was it still the Tamron?

[RAILhead]

Yeah, that was the Tamron. I loves mai Tamron.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

Yeah, that was the Tamron. I loves mai Tamron.

It has hit the top of my "Things I am Soon Buying" list.

[- - e r i k - -]

Speaking of which, I have a Tamron DiII AF18-200mm F3.5-6.3 lens here I want to sell. Any takers?

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

Really nice perspective. You caught a really good expression, and the hair is falling really nicely.

Are her eyes a bit soft? They seem very slightly out of focus. If you're working with a really shallow DOF, I understand that the eye on the left (her right) would be out, but not the right one. Or was that due to a slightly longer exposure?

Nitpicking aside, it's a good shot of a good subject. Ya lucky fella.

Yeah. Camera shake and long exposure (1/4). Tried my best at fixing it up, but there

[Jawbone54]

Yeah, at first I was thinking it was a misfocus, but the longer I looked at it, the more it seemed to be shutter lag. Not very noticeable though.

Like I said, still a really good picture. If I were you, I wouldn't have any problem displaying it in the house or on the desk at work.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

AAAAAAACHOOO!

More portraits:

<original gone>

Fixed?

[brassplayersrock²]

the lips and teeth seem a bit blurry

[- - e r i k - -]

As far digital grain goes, I've seen worse. The grain here is obviously the result from sharpening a soft 1/4s shutter speed image at ISO 250.

For the sharpening I've sharpened several layers, then masked around the edges to scale back on the worst grain while still retaining the sharp edges. I'm not a fan of digital grain myself, but in this shot I don't mind it as it's turned into something more akin to film grain (minus the different levels of grain). On a printout this just gives texture to the image and isn't as noticeable as it would be on screen, whereas a soft image is.

[Jawbone54]

The eyes lost their life, and look...really, really weird. It's the whites; they just look crazy.

I like what Erik did to it earlier. All he really needed was for the eyes to be sharper, and I think he succeeded enough to where it's not noticeable at all.

[Jawbone54]

Maybe. I dunno.

Using a glossy screen?