Photo Critique for a buddy.

[usayit]

I'm trying to convince a buddy of mine to common over and join TPF. With his permission, I'm posting a few of his pics from his gallery for feedback ( all in seperate threads ). So folks... lets see some good feedback for my buddy. Its open season.. he's open to any type of comments good or bad.

 

[Big Mike]

Again this is a pretty good shot. I think it might benefit from a little cropping though. I'd crop the bottom a lot closer to the boat, showing only a little space below the boat.

To take it even further, I might crop out the band of clouds at the top. This would leave just the boat, the shore line & the sun. Then maybe a little off of the right side if that is too much of a panoramic.

 

[meotter]

thanks for the comments, i can see what you mean with the cropping...

 

[Osmer_Toby]

correct the horizon line to true horizontal.

nice shot! :thumbsup:

 

[meotter]

how would you go about correcting the horizon line? image rotation?

 

[Osmer_Toby]

exactly. rotate image about 5 degrees ccw, recrop.

 

[canonrebel]

how would you go about correcting the horizon line? image rotation?

If you have access to PhotoShop........

In PhotoShop,
Click and hold on the Eyedropper Tool until drop-down menu appears.

Select Measure Tool from that menu.

With the cursor, trace the perpendicular spar on the boat's sail with a straight line for about half the length of the spar.

Click on Image in the menu bar |

Select Rotate Canvas from the DDM

Select Arbitrary from the DDM (drop-down-menu)

Click OK.

This will give you a perfectly horizontal horizon on the first attempt.

 

[canonrebel]

This must have been a nice scene.

IMHO, the photo is at least 1 stop under exposed. There is no detail in the boat or the sail. The under exposure lends to the sunset effect, but it's not a true sunset because the sun is too high above the horizon.

With a little constructive cropping, this photo would make a statement for a siloutte. But I'm unimpressed with silouttes and that's why I would open up the shadows.

essentually, I'm uncomfortable with inadaquate detail in shadows.

 

[meotter]

thanks for the instruction on how to rotate it i had no idea you could do that (or how to do it), here's the stupidest question... what's a spar?

 

[Osmer_Toby]

hey, that technique is new to me, too, reb. thanks man!

 

[voodoocat]

hey, that technique is new to me, too, reb. thanks man!

Shouldn't be... it's the first tip in the photoshop tips thread

 

[Osmer_Toby]

hey, that technique is new to me, too, reb. thanks man!

Shouldn't be... it's the first tip in the photoshop tips thread

ok, so i'm an idiot - i never checked out the sticky!
that's a cool tip, i'll be using it for sure.
i gotta check that sticky out more often, though it looks like it cooled off some. we gotta drum up more business for that forum- i love learning shortcuts like this

 

[markc]

One issue I have with the need to make the horizon actually horizontal: it's only horizontal when looked at from a direct 90 degree angle. Otherwise the part of the land that's closer will be lower in the frame and the further part will be farther away. I think that's the case here.

It still might look better rotated, but I think the height of the building at the water's edge gets smaller as you go to the right, so I think it would look weird to my eyes if it were level.