My 1st upload

Latina · Mar 18, 2008

So PLEASE tell me how I could improve on this:

LeftyRodriguez · Mar 18, 2008

A couple of things come to mind to begin with. First, I'd make sure that it was straight, but that's just me...maybe you had an artistic reason for making it kind of off-centre. Secondly, it's kind of flat. Not a lot of dynamic range, or contrast...it's almost that every grey level is pretty much the same. Also, that background is waaay blown out, but that's probably because you had to meter for either/or. YMMV.

Coldow91 · Mar 18, 2008

I would boost the contrast so that the picture is not so gray, and is more gripping. I would also straighten it a bit and get rid of the border as I don't think it adds to the photo. The composition is alright but maybe a shot from either farer or closer would be better because I feel the dumpster is cut off in a weird place. I would show you what I would do the photo but you say we can't edit them

kundalini · Mar 18, 2008

Another vote about the tilt. You could go either way with it by increasing much more or by straightening to 0°.

Agree with the constrast comments.

Agree with the crop of the dumpster is akward. Personally, I think if you backed up, took a few steps to your left and lowered your PoV, it could be an interesting shot.

Keep shooting!

Latina · Mar 19, 2008

Funny, I was driving by this and snapped the picture which can account for how close or far I am and the tilt...the light turned green so I had to snap quick.

Thank u for the feedback!

My questions:

Boost my contrast? (Forgive me if this is obvious).

I am going to change the "edit my photo option" because I'd like to see what could be done to make the photo better.

MarcusM · Mar 19, 2008

Latina said:
Funny, I was driving by this and snapped the picture which can account for how close or far I am and the tilt...the light turned green so I had to snap quick.

Thank u for the feedback!

My questions:

Boost my contrast? (Forgive me if this is obvious).

I am going to change the "edit my photo option" because I'd like to see what could be done to make the photo better.

lol, there's your main problem right there. I wouldn't expect great photos taken from a car you're driving while waiting for the light to change.

You should get out and walk around so you can concentrate on your exposures.

LeftyRodriguez · Mar 20, 2008

I've done a quick edit (by no means perfect) to give you an idea of what some contrast boost and sharpening would do for the image:

Notice how the contrast adds a bit of depth to the image? Also, the sharpening brings out some of the details and cuts down on the softness. Unfortunately, I couldn't really do anything about the blown highlights in the background...just not enough image data there. Also, I cropped it a bit to remove the vignetting, which I found didn't benefit this image all that much. I also straightened it a bit, but now that I look at it, I probably could've straightened it a bit more. At any rate, this was just a quick edit to get you started.

Gsurf1029 · Mar 20, 2008

thats muuuch better, pretty solid edit

would it look akward to add like a dark grey line to the top of the building in the background to give it some shape?

MarcusM · Mar 20, 2008

Gsurf1029 said:
thats muuuch better, pretty solid edit

would it look akward to add like a dark grey line to the top of the building in the background to give it some shape?

I think a line on top would look too artificial. I had an idea and wanted to play with it. How does this look?

Gsurf1029 · Mar 20, 2008

awesome, howd you do that?

MarcusM · Mar 21, 2008

Gsurf1029 said:
awesome, howd you do that?

It was really easy.

I used the selection tools to make a selection at the end of the alley where the blown out building would be, excluding the windows.

Then I used the eyedropper and got a lighter shade of gray from near the end of the alley.

Next I painted the color from the eyedropper with the brush tool with opacity around 75% and painted in the selection until I got the shade I wanted.

Then I used the Texturizer filter on the selection, bumped down the scaling to 50% and put the Relief to 2.

Flattened and saved!

andrew99 · Mar 21, 2008

Wow, that's cool .. thanks for the mini turorial, Marcus! I gotta try that myself on some of my photos!

ChrisP · Mar 21, 2008

Nice job Marcus. Not sure if intent of the photo was to draw attention to the building at end of the alley, but your edits did that. The only thing with that edit and the previous lack of contrast/texture on the back building is it looks so "sanitized" compared to the rest of the photo. Maybe that's what really draws attention to it in your version.