Brand new to this tips and CC please

[herrkiser]

First post, only got my camera and gear on Thursday. It is a bit intimidating posting as some of what I've seem don't seem like the work of beginners. These have only been cropped and re-sized in gimp, no PP yet. Would love some ideas on editing and composition. I tried on the landscapes to get the sky correct in hopes of fixing the rest in pp.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

 

[tirediron]

Welcome, C&C per req:


1, 2, 3. Compositionally, not a lot to say as there doesn't seem to be a main subject; that is: Nothing for the eye to focus on. Technically, the skies are reasonably exposed, but at the expense of the land. This is a very challenging scene to expose correctly as the dynamic range of the secne exceeds that which your camera's sensor can record.


To do this, you're going to have to do one of two things, either use graduated neutral-density filters which will reduce the brightness of the sky, or shoot multiple shots at differening exposures and combine with software to create a High-dynamic-range merge (HDR).


4. Interesting shot; good focus and depth of field for a close up work. The exposure isn't bad, 'though I think it could be lightented maybe 1/3 - 1/2 stop and I would suggest cropping some of the empty area image right.


5. THis one appears slightly soft, and the blown area web is a bit distracitng, but an interesting perspective.


Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.


~John

 

[herrkiser]

thanks for the advice, on 1 i tried to get a "best of both worlds" with the exposure. 2and3 i knew would be dark, but hope i can fix it a bit in pp as opposed to blowing out the sky. the spiders were tough to do with my 17-55, had to get quite a bit closer than i like to be to them

 

[Inst!nct]

hum, the first 3 look underexposed, but I like the last one a lot.

 

[herrkiser]

can i fix the first three in pp? or will it just go from underexposed to blown out sky?

 

[tirediron]

If you have an editing program such as Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, or The Gimp which supports layers, than you can create a layer which is composed only of the under-exposed area and work on that selectively. If you try and adjust the whole image, than you will like lose sky detail, 'though careful work with the curves adjustment tool might improve things somewhat.