Can this photo be saved? C&C please

taracary · May 19, 2009

This is a quick shot from my new camera (REBEL XTI) It's nothing special in terms of composition, but I love the expression on her face. And, of course I had about 0.005 seconds to get it before she moved

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas on how to eliminate some of the distractions and bring out her expression I would appreciate it.

farmerj · May 19, 2009

Crop in to just your heads.

I would try it, but the size of the print here isn't warranting it.

ohsogroovy · May 20, 2009

You'll notice that your daughter's skin is the lightest tone in the picture, so, I think it would work out VERY well to convert it to black and white. You want the emphasis on HER, so the black and white will lend to that.

I also did a slight blur around everything that wasn't her face and where she's touching Dad. I also put a not-so-black vignette on the whole thing, so you couldn't tell it was cropped, and it looks like you used a vignette filter on the original photo.

I hope this gives you some ideas for your picture

BTW, I'm trying to collect picture ideas for projects like this. Here is my blog so far Photo and Picture Ideas

taracary · May 20, 2009

That's awesome. Just what I was looking for. I am definitely an amateur both at taking photos and at fixing them. And a lot of the time, especially with kids you only get that split second to get the shot. It definitely converted well to black and white and I like having her arms still in the picture.

Not sure why the picture showed up as basically a thumbnail in the post I just put it in Photoshop and set the image size to 800 pixels so that it would abide by forum rules. But I see other people's pictures come up full size. Anybody know why?

Thanks again for the help with the pic.