Need help

Dcrymes84 · Jun 28, 2009

Hey everyone this is a picture of my 8 year old sister i was playing with my camera while she was playing her disney game online. Could someone please tell me what i need to work on when i go to crop this picture i dont have photo shop but i have flicker. What do i need to delete and what needs to be lightend and darkend any shadows need to come out. just any help or tips would be greatly appreciated thanks guys and gals...

dxqcanada · Jun 28, 2009

You could look into using a good FreeWare image editor:

Photoscape
GIMP for Windows

First start with getting rid of background that does not contribute to the portrait.

You should also try to get the camera to use a lower ISO (the next time).

noob873 · Jun 28, 2009

You should've gotten a better angle and framed it differently to get rid of most of that empty space and to make the picture more interesting. It also looks like you used the on camera flash, which you should try to avoid. Makes it look very flat. Overall it needs some slight contrast as well.

Dcrymes84 · Jun 28, 2009

dxqcanada said:
You could look into using a good FreeWare image editor:

Photoscape
GIMP for Windows

First start with getting rid of background that does not contribute to the portrait.

You should also try to get the camera to use a lower ISO (the next time).

Thank you for the downloads... i forgot i already had gimp downloaded and photoscape is the same as Picasso i already have it lol..

dxqcanada · Jun 28, 2009

Remember ... light is the most important thing about photography.

Understanding light and how to use it is the foundation of photography.
Many fail to figure that out..

Direct flash is very harsh (I only used flash indirectly) ... a simple thing like pointing the flash at the ceiling can greatly improve the image.

DSPhotography · Jun 29, 2009

I agree. Lots of dead space around her + on camera flash = not so good. Cropping will take out the dead areas and playing with contrast/brightness will kill some of the "washed out" look, but there's not much you can do (that I know of) to get rid of the shadows cast from the flash.

On a side note, she has REALLY long toes

Dcrymes84 · Jun 29, 2009

Thanks for all the helpful tips and comments i never realy noticed her toes lol....

gopal · Jun 29, 2009

there is ''picnik''with flickr...u click 'edit' above the photo and then and there u can crop etc....be a member of 'picnik .com'

dakkon76 · Jul 1, 2009

Just my opinion, but keep your background in mind too... no matter what you do to this picture, it's going to look like it's from the 70's because of the wood paneling

bigtwinky · Jul 1, 2009

Its always best to aim to get the picture nicely framed and set IN camera and avoid any post processing.

Never shoot just one picture. Shoot at different angles, focal lenghts, apertures etc etc.

Dcrymes84 · Jul 1, 2009

Ok guys iv been working on this pic all day and this is all i can come up with so i hope its good enough let me know what ya'll think or what i need to change.

SrBiscuit · Jul 2, 2009

dakkon76 said:
Just my opinion, but keep your background in mind too... no matter what you do to this picture, it's going to look like it's from the 70's because of the wood paneling

i was going to say the same thing...
the location is lacking a lot in my opinion. get her in front of a blank wall or outside or something.

the crop looks much better, but i dont like the added noise, and i think i would consider some vignette to darken some of the BG.

keep shootin!