Couple more to C&C

[tmL]

Hey guys, I took a ride on the Staten Island ferry yesterday and wanted you thoughts on some photos I got:

1.

2.

3.

The bright lights in the first and second are really annoying and I think attract way too much attention...is there a way to de-brighten them?? Also, please let me know what you think about the third one, or how you might have changed it. I was just playing around but got something I liked. Yes, I know the subjects are out of focus (still on my point and shoot until tomorrow) but other comments are really appreciated.

Oh, and I'm new to Lightroom 3, is there a way to make the vignitte black instead of white?

Thanks!

 

[tmL]

Any comments?

 

[tirediron]

Your sensor needs cleaning! The ideas in 1 and 2 are nice, but the excessive blown areas from the sun really kill the images IMO. 3 would be much nice with more moderate processing.

 

[tmL]

Are you referring to that weird dark circle in the first one? I don't know what it is or how to get rid of it, but whenever there's sky in my picture it's there...how do I clean my sensor??

 

[WesternGuy]

You definitely need to clean your sensor as has been noted. If you Google "sensor cleaning"you will find lots of sites with advice and instructions on how to do this. Any further questions, then post back and some one should be able to help. Personally I use the VisibleDust products : Products ? DSLR sensor cleaning , but there are others as well.

As far as the "bright lights" are concerned, you might(?) be able to subdue them a bit using the "Graduated Filter" tool in Lightroom, but I am not sure that it will help a lot with such bright lights - I have used it, but not under such conditions...I will sometimes use it to darken up a sky a bit. The other way is with graduated filters, although I am not sure they would help here, particularly with the second one. When I have such bright sunshine that I am shooting into, I will often try and hide the sun behind something, like a tree or a building. In the case of the second image, if you had been in a different position, you might have tried to hide it behind the sail, but that is all I can suggest here. I suspect that you could probably do something better with Photoshop, but I am not that familiar with it to explain exactly what it is you should do...maybe someone else here can give you that advice.

For the third one, the skin colour looks a little off to me, and the background and the sky look a little washed out. Since I do not know what the original looked like, it is often hard to say what you could have or should have done with it. Do you shoot raw?

As far as the vignette is concerned, if you move the "Amount" slider into the negative amount, then I think you will find that the vignette will be black instead of white. Then you can adjust the other settings as you need them. HTH

Cheers,

WesternGuy

 

[tmL]

Hmm, I checked it out but they are all guides for DSLRs and as I mentioned before, these were taken with my point and shoot. I'd still like to clean it if possible so if anyone has any advice that would be great. Thanks for the feedback!

I saturated the third image a little more, and really like the change because it brings out the subjects more. Now, honestly I don't know if I like the third picture better with black or white vignetting. What do you guys think?

 

[Cyclographist]

On the first one, the horizon is right in the middle of the picture and it looks a bit distorted with the edges of the horizon curling up. Try putting the horizon off center of the image to make it more interesting. On the one you just posted, I like the white vignetting better because the picture is a tad on the dark side to begin with, so the black border makes it feel too dark. I like the idea of the first two shots though! The lighting just needs a bit of work.

 

[KmH]

To clean the image sensor in your P&S camera you will need to disassemble it, and then put it back together.

Or you can use image editing software to edit out the dark dust blob, and adjust the white balance:

1.

.

 

[tmL]

Oh...that sounds difficult heh. I'll call Panasonic and see what they can do hah. How did you get the blob out? I tried a few things but again I'm new with photo editing software. I'm using LR3.
Thanks a lot for the tips everyone.

 

[KmH]

I used the Spot Healing tool in Content-Aware mode in CS5.

Lightroom is really limited in the kind of edits it can do. Lightroom was mainly designed for image database management.