My family christmas photos

elsaspet · Dec 30, 2007

Hi GH. Welcome to the forum.

This isn't the "old days of film".
Now, you'd be hard pressed to find a professional portrait photographer who would give you anything they just spit out of their camera.

As for the photos posted, the white balance is different in virtually every photo, it's often overexposed, there is no depth of focus to be found, and the images seemed cramped.
Teresa is sitting on her hand in the 7th, the treeskirt is flipped showing it's underside in the 8th, and the tree appears to be peircing the head of the child in the 9th. I personally don't see how even a wizard of photoshop could have fixed these errors. However, even basic photoshop skills could have fixed the white balance, and helped out with the exposure issuses.
As far as being cramped, I'm seeing gifts in front of the tree in a lot of these photos. I'd say move the gifts to the side, and use the front of the tree.
Also, the sheet thing isn't working at all. These would have been much more effective if she had just used the walls.
We all make these mistakes from time to time, so I'm not just being down on Teresa. The surprising thing however, is that there seem to be layers and layers of basic mistakes in these photographs.

NJMAN · Dec 30, 2007

ghpham said:
I respectfully disagree. You would be a sloppy photographer if you count on processing your image everytime to make dress it up for "critique". You would be a much better photographer IMO if you tried to get the shot right the first time and only minimally making adjustment. Relying on PP only make you perhaps a better computer wizard, not improving your photography skill. Tell me, what did you do in the old day when all you had was film???

No one is asking Teresa or anyone to rely on PP to make something of their photos if they dont get it right SOOC. No professional in their right mind would even consider trying to pass off images SOOC with no PP.

In the old days when all you had was film, the pro photogs had a professional lab edit their photos. Today, the digital photographer does their own editing digitally. The concepts are the same today as they once were in the past, only the medium is different.

Try reading up a bit on the history of professional film photography.

ghpham · Dec 30, 2007

I would agree with the premise that no pro would give a straight out of the camera pics to a client. That said, they don't rely on PP heavily to get a good pic. Like Elsaspet mentioned (thanks for the welcome

), no amount of PP is going to help with Teresa's shots (except maybe with WB, but even then, not much, since she is shooting with JPEG). What Teresa need is technical advise to help make the shot better, and you don't need a PP pic to do that. I doubt she have the time to PP (baby?).

I do realize that in the old day, there is PP in the lab. That said, for the novice, you would not have the time, or money to have your own lab, and to send it off to a lab, well, that's just expensive. I would say a pro should get a shot at least 95% good out of the camera, and 5% for PP.

Teresa needs help with the 95%. Agree?