Second round of David and Melissa

[NJMAN]

I worked on the brightness and white balance issues in some more of the photos from David and Melissa's wedding. Here are a few new ones, as well as some corrections on the first ones. Comments welcome. Thanks for looking.

1. Father/daughter dance. She got a little emotional during this.

2. Two nieces at the dance.

3. The 2 nieces again.

4. Mother and father of the groom dancing.

5. Mother and father of the bride dancing.

6. Amber up in the balcony.

7. White balance corrected since the first one.

8. White balance corrected and candle cloned out above his head since the first one.

9. White balance corrected and brightened overall since the first one.

10. White balance corrected since the first one.

11. Dreamy effect sharpened a bit more since the first one.

12. Less saturation and contrast since the first one.

 

[oldnavy170]

These photos look so much better then the first set. You did a nice job!

 

[JimmyJaceyMom]

I have seen these before the first set so I dont know how much better they are but I'll say I love them!!!! I hope I do as well when I start weddings!

 

[NJMAN]

Thanks oldnavy!

JimmyJaceyMom, the first set is posted here:
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80272

Thanks for the nice comments!

 

[EOS_JD]

No2 is still a bit under exposed (check the levels again). I agree they are better than the first ones posed and as candids go they are nice for a first time.

 

[Leo]

Very nice, I like it. My fav is #11 and #12

 

[NJMAN]

Thanks JD and Leo! Your advice/comments carry a lot of weight.

 

[Big Mike]

Nice work, I see a definite improvement on the re-worked photos.

It might just be my monitor, but on a few of them, it looks like the black suits are completely dark...just big black blobs. When editing your shots, try not to loose too much detail in the shadows...while at the same time, trying to not loose detail in the highlights either. This is usually a problem as the grooms usually wears black and the bride usually wears white. It's usually best to give the edge to the bride and her dress but if you can save some detail in the dark suits...that would be nice.

 

[NJMAN]

Thanks for the tips Mike!

I think it does have something to do with the monitor, because my Dell flat panel monitor at home is where I do all my editing and post processing, and everything looks quite bright. So what I end up doing is looking at the numbers and the histogram to get accurate exposure/brightness levels, while also gauging the color and exposure by eye as well. But I often tend to go a little below what the readings tell me because it looks good to me already. It can be quite tricky doing it this way because I don't want to cause blowout on the whites, nor do I want the suit jackets to be "black blobs". But what looks good to me on my primary monitor can often look too dark on my work monitor and other people's monitors.

Do I need to calibrate my primary monitor at home so that I get better results across most monitors?

 

[elsaspet]

Hi,
I'm wondering if I can swipe your cake photo so that I can put a white balance on it. (I can still do it with JPEG)

 

[NJMAN]

Hi elsa,

Yes, thats okay, but just let me know what you did with it. Thanks.

 

[elsaspet]

Sure thing. I'll be back with it in a sec.

 

[elsaspet]

Here ya go!
(Reposting yours so that it's easier to see the changes side by side)
Before:

after:

The lighting you had was orange. Orange is what color cast was in the reception hall. Orange is made of red and yellow, so I lowered the saturation in both the red and yellow channels.

Another problem here was that it was a tad underexposed. I went to levels and adjusted the right hand side to brighten the photo.

There was a slight green tinge around the flowers on the cake. I wasn't sure if that was cast or just a whoopsie while decorating the cake so I dodged just in those areas.

Viola!

So now, you know everything that happened in that same area of the room needs to be adjusted on the red and yellow channel.

Hope that helps!

 

[Big Mike]

Thanks for the tips Mike!

I think it does have something to do with the monitor, because my Dell flat panel monitor at home is where I do all my editing and post processing, and everything looks quite bright. So what I end up doing is looking at the numbers and the histogram to get accurate exposure/brightness levels, while also gauging the color and exposure by eye as well. But I often tend to go a little below what the readings tell me because it looks good to me already. It can be quite tricky doing it this way because I don't want to cause blowout on the whites, nor do I want the suit jackets to be "black blobs". But what looks good to me on my primary monitor can often look too dark on my work monitor and other people's monitors.

Do I need to calibrate my primary monitor at home so that I get better results across most monitors?

It's probably my monitor...I just got a new 21" LCD here at work...which is great but it's not the most accurate. As I sit here, there is a big difference in the brightness from the top to the bottom :roll:

Anyway, I absolutely recommend that you calibrate your primary monitor...not just to make them look good on other people monitors...but to make sure that your color and tones are accurate on prints (or whatever your final output will be). I suggest the Colorvision Spyder II or the Pantone Huey.

 

[NJMAN]

Elsa,
Wow, what a difference! Thanks for the great tip on the yellow and red channels!

Mike,
No problem. I have the same thing on my monitor at work (big difference in brightness from top to bottom). I have to make sure I am always looking at the middle of the screen so that I am looking at photos accurately. Thanks for the calibration tips!