Here a noob, there a noob, everywhere... etc. [C&C]

[Jace]

Hello folks! I, as you can tell, am new! Thought I would just jump in and let some of you tell me what's wrong with my pictures. For instance, is it normal, and or ok, to alter your photos afterward with photoshop, or is that frowned upon?

Thought I would throw a few up here, mainly from my work place.


#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

The cat of course is not from my work place.

 

[Derrel]

The evacuation assembly area's grass appears to have been burned to a crisp; I'm not sure what other people think, but I think that's ironic, and I would say that photo is the best photo out of the entire collection shown here.

 

[spacefuzz]

I find #5 the most interesting of the bunch. And I always tweak my pictures in photoshop. Levels or sharpening, even if its minor. Maybe some dodging or burning. Just to make it look how I want.

 

[o hey tyler]

You should have a bunch of people popping a squat in photo #5. I feel like it would really demonstrate people evacuating their bowels.

#2 is probably my favorite, but having the shadows in the background darkened by a stop or so would look much nicer.

 

[KmH]

..... is it normal, and or ok, to alter your photos afterward with photoshop, or is that frowned upon?

Our brains alter our perception of reality to conform to many of our expectations, so humans never see reality anyway.

A photograph is a 2-D image of a 3-D scene, so that part of reality is immediately altered.

The image sensor is a linear analog device having a dynamic range much smaller than our non-linear analog eyes, so the camera can't record what we can see anyway.

Digital SLR image sensors only record red, green, and blue light. Most in a square 4 pixel array: 1 red pixel, 1 blue pixel, and 2 green pixels on diagonal corners (humans eyes are more sensitive to green). It's called a Bayer Array. A few image sensors use a 3 layer chip that takes advantage of the refractive index of silicon. Called the Foveon image sensor.

Plus there is a filter array in front of the image sensor to block UV and infrared wavelengths of light and for anti-aliasing (AA). But the AA filter softens focus so in addition to de-mosiacing the Bayer Array image an sharpening algorithm has to be applied to regain some of the focus sharpness lost because of the AA filter.

Of course, then the analog voltages generated by the photons of light that hit the image sensor pixel photo receptors have to be amplified and converted to a digital value before any further image processing can be done. More altering of reality.

So every digital photo is significantly altered from reality. Some like the JPEG format are altered right in the camera and a sizable amout of the image dtat is simple discarded to reduce the file size.

To alter a photo a bit more in Photoshop sure doesn't seem like a no-no.

So, every photograph ever made has been altered. Before digital cameras a lot of it was all done in a wet darkroom. The photographer chose the film, and each film type reacted to light and color differently. Which chemicals, at what temperature, using which agitation technique were used to develope the negatives. Photographic papers were chosen based on how they rendered contrast and/or saturated colors, unless the film used was color transparency film.

A lot of what Photoshop can do is just what was done in a darkroom, but done digitally - without using smelly chemicals while wearing a rubber apron and gloves.

 

[Jace]

You should have a bunch of people popping a squat in photo #5. I feel like it would really demonstrate people evacuating their bowels.

#2 is probably my favorite, but having the shadows in the background darkened by a stop or so would look much nicer.

When you say add a stop to darken it, what type do you mean? I go to add an adjustment layer, but it gives me around 20 options to chose from, and I'm not sure which one I'm supposed to choose.







Wow KmH, that's a lot of stuff I didn't know, thank you! I was just afraid some may rail at me for editing the colors and such.

 

[Kofman13]

what does this thread have to do with noobs

 

[Jace]

Mainly me. I'm so noob, when I walk it squishes out from between my toes. It's not an unpleasant feeling mind you, just disturbing to any who may be nearby at the time.

 

[Jace]

Ok! So, I worked on the hood picture, but as I couldn't find a tutorial to match my version of PS, at least I'm guessing that's the reason, I couldn't quite figure out the stop thing.

And here are a few more:

#6

#7

Sooo... any comments on my composition, PP, or any of those other terms that I am barely aware of? No, seriously, I want to improve.

 

[o hey tyler]

The photo of the car looks much better. Could be touched up a bit, but it's definitely an improvement.

The second photo is a bit over processed for me, and kind of painful to look at.

Photo 3 has a centered composition with too many distracting elements in the foreground. I suggest doing some reading on composition and the rule of thirds. Think about drawing the viewer into the photograph.

 

[mikehaugen]

kmh always has such technical answers, it seems he has done an awful lot of research on how cameras work- or is he just making stuff up- would anyone know the difference anyway? I like to believe he's right.

 

[ScribbledShinanigans]

I was going to say the same thing about the dark room! After realizing this I felt much better about doing a bit of dodge and burn touch up on my digital prints. Actually, dodging and burning is basically the entire process in the dark room. how much light do I want shown? how dark do I want my shadows.

On the other had though, you need to be careful. I have a friend that seems to truly believe that a photo is not complete without completely sharpening and contrasting a photo. I call it the "profile style" effect. Because It seems that people love to make super extremely contrasting pictures for a "cute profile picture" on their Facebook. In fact, I just took some fairly professionally done shots of her and a friend and she STILL did it to all of them. It kind of irritates me, actually.

As for the first part about what our eyes REALLY see... you need to check this out. it's amazing!
JST Virtual Science Center | Mind Lab

 

[ScribbledShinanigans]

I was going to say the same thing about the dark room! After realizing this I felt much better about doing a bit of dodge and burn touch up on my digital prints. Actually, dodging and burning is basically the entire process in the dark room. how much light do I want shown? how dark do I want my shadows.

On the other had though, you need to be careful. I have a friend that seems to truly believe that a photo is not complete without completely sharpening and contrasting a photo. I call it the "profile style" effect. Because It seems that people love to make super extremely contrasting pictures for a "cute profile picture" on their Facebook. In fact, I just took some fairly professionally done shots of her and a friend and she STILL did it to all of them. It kind of irritates me, actually.

As for the first part about what our eyes REALLY see... you need to check this out. it's amazing!
JST Virtual Science Center | Mind Lab

 

[Jace]

The photo of the car looks much better. Could be touched up a bit, but it's definitely an improvement.

The second photo is a bit over processed for me, and kind of painful to look at.

Photo 3 has a centered composition with too many distracting elements in the foreground. I suggest doing some reading on composition and the rule of thirds. Think about drawing the viewer into the photograph.

Yeah, no one is really a fan of the bright truck, but I thought I'd give it a try I actually did some cropping on #3 from the left side, thinking about cutting out the right joint of fence which houses the stop sign.

 

[Jace]

Shot this one today, though there is a fence in my way.