c&c please

[lunaaa]

please tell me what you all think i dont mind harsh critisicm,i'm still a noob and i'm trying to learn so anything would be helpful.
thanks in advance.

 

[lightning_jack]

did you save that image as a .gif by accident or is it an effect you wanted to achieve? photos - if saved for the web - should best be saved as .jpgs in order to preserve quality. gif only has 256 colours.

for the rest - sweet pic, but strange focus. face seems to be (which is most important and good) but shirt is off - does throw ME off. Mabe that's a side effect of .gif compression.

also, the composition is kind of odd - the nothing-really-saying bush is as prominent as little cutie - together with the straight white area to the left that makes it almost 100% of a simple snapshot. still, colors and white balance are nice. exposure seems good (although i think that having the white to the left a bit darker would have been better).

just some thoughts from another noob.

 

[WhiteSoul8]

Wow! What a darling photograph! The most important element of a photograph is how it strikes the viewer's emotions - in my personal opinion. I see lots of things that are done right here. Composition - the subject is off center, the bokeh - or blur - in the background is nice and provides a sense of depth. The skin tones look natural. Catchlight in the eye, and a nice defining shadow under the jaw line. Applause!


Here are a couple things that could have been done to make it a better photograph--of which there is very little.

1 - Try photographing before lunch or playtime, as her white shirt is no longer white - it's been tainted by this nice little girl's adventure around the house. If you were photographing her making a mess, that would be cute - however, that's not the case.

2 - I see some digital noise - and I'm not sure what it's caused by. If I knew what it was caused by, I would suggest a remedy. It could be a photo program being used, the method that it was edited for being uploaded, etc (so forth) - and so on. I don't mind seeing it in the upper right hand corner of the background but it pops out at me on her lips, her neck, and arms.

3 - I'd like to see more detail on the structure on the left, behind the subject - and a little more detail on the walkway behind her. How would I try doing this? I'll explain in plain terms - pretending the subject isn't in the picture, I would create an exposure (shutter speed and aperture settings) so the whole scene was exposed perfectly - with no areas burnt out to white. Then, I would set a flash exposure for the subject.

Anyway, great job! Keep shooting!

 

[lunaaa]

did you save that image as a .gif by accident or is it an effect you wanted to achieve? photos - if saved for the web - should best be saved as .jpgs in order to preserve quality. gif only has 256 colours.

for the rest - sweet pic, but strange focus. face seems to be (which is most important and good) but shirt is off - does throw ME off. Mabe that's a side effect of .gif compression.

also, the composition is kind of odd - the nothing-really-saying bush is as prominent as little cutie - together with the straight white area to the left that makes it almost 100% of a simple snapshot. still, colors and white balance are nice. exposure seems good (although i think that having the white to the left a bit darker would have been better).

just some thoughts from another noob.

I did save it as GIF as i didnt know JPG were better for the reason you mentioned.( apparently i'm more of a noob than i thought)
As for the focus i'm trying to practise manual focus and its a frustration how you slightly miss the focus over and over:x
now that you said it i think that composition is really odd,didnt seem that way when i shot it.
thanks for the notes,really appreciate it.

 

[lunaaa]

Thanks whitesoul . She's been so hard to photograph she hates staying still longer than 10 seconds . I was so happy i got her to stand where i wanted her for a photograph that i didnt notice the turning-to-black shirt at that time

I think the noise you see is a result of using the unsharp mask in pp,maybe i over did that?

Thanks for the notes it really helped alot.

 

[WhiteSoul8]

Any time Lunaa =) As for the noise, it could have something to do with post processing - was the noise present in the original file?

 

[KmH]

Watch those backgrounds and focus on the eyes.

 

[lunaaa]

no the original photo doesnt have any noise i think it got noisy due to oversharpening.

 

[lunaaa]

Watch those backgrounds and focus on the eyes.

I'll surely keep that in mind next time,thanks .

 

[Lipoly]

I've taken a look at this thread a few times now and every time I do I'm drawn to the couple areas on the shirt that appear to be stains...not an issue w/snapshots but for posed portraits its not something I'd expect to see.

 

[lunaaa]

Its not exactly a portrait,we were off to the summer house and i just wanted to take a photo of her and was also practising my new camera so i tried making the best out of the place and the moment but it's way far from being a posed portrait.