How do i make my photos better

[charchri4]

I think it depends on what you want. That is a fantastic Facebook photo I would be proud to post. He is adorable and should be shown off! As a proper portrait in the living room not so much...

At first glance my eye is drawn to the pumpkins in the foreground because they are so bright, so many and so busy. Thus the first impression is not the very cute little boys face. On closer look when I do get to the point of the shot there is a swing set coming out of his cheek and shed coming out of his other ear that is very distracting. It also has the whites blown out and the shadows under his eyes are not flattering to him.

Pulling the whites down, shadows up, blurring the back ground and a bit of a crop would go a long way to driving the focal point where you want it and make this a great shot IMO. Oh and also IMO the watermark is not helping you in the completely unnecessary distractions department...

 

[mrsblackfoto]

I'm no means a professional as I'm still a beginner but soemthings do stand out that could be worked on. The obvious one being the letter looks like it's touching his head. Another thing I see is his hands are sitting in a claw like stance. Maybe next time let him hold a leaf or something to distract his lil hands. It does look a little bright. One thing I learned from playing around with the dails is that even though my camera says it's not the proper settings for a good exposure, I shoot in a low exposure when using the flash esp outside, on the view finder my images look darker but when I upload them to light shop I have much more to work with and it turns out nice. I think they look crisp and the quality to me, is nice. I just think if you practiced different composition of the subject and objects in the shot you would see improvement. Good job overall though!

 

[Peeb]

EDIT: incorporated Jim's crop suggestion as well, which I thought was a good one.

 

[charchri4]

I'm don't know how to blur the back ground or fix the blown out shirt with a jpg but just a simple crop focuses the photo where you want it to go.

 

[snowbear]

Not the selective color - it pulls attention away from the child, implying the pumpkins are more important.

 

[Peeb]

Not the selective color - it pulls attention away from the child, implying the pumpkins are more important.

Agree to disagree. I found the exposure-blown sky to be a real bummer, and switching to straight b/w just wasn't doing it for me. I liked the selective pumpkins and thought the kiddo was clearly not going to be ignored (he looks like a happy little handful!). You disagree- no worries. Your point makes a lot of sense, but I still like the pumpkins.

PS- hate that disagree button. Most of us take and even encourage C&C, but the big red X kinda yells "You stink" (which wasn't what you meant) rather than "I would have made a different choice there, friend" (which what you said in your well-reasoned post).

 

[The_Traveler]

Not the selective color - it pulls attention away from the child, implying the pumpkins are more important.

Agree to disagree. I found the exposure-blown sky to be a real bummer, and switching to straight b/w just wasn't doing it for me. I liked the selective pumpkins and thought the kiddo was clearly not going to be ignored (he looks like a happy little handful!). You disagree- no worries. Your point makes a lot of sense, but I still like the pumpkins.

PS- hate that disagree button. Most of us take and even encourage C&C, but the big red X kinda yells "You stink" (which wasn't what you meant) rather than "I would have made a different choice there, friend" (which what you said in your well-reasoned post).

Selective color can be used to draw attention.
Why would the photographer want to draw attention to the pumpkins?
Selective color is rarely appropriate, attractive or useful.

Why not stop trying to beat this poor picture with edits to get something good out of it?
This picture has such real, disqualifying defects that no amount of PSing will make it a good representative of a photographers work.

 

[charchri4]

Why not stop trying to beat this poor picture with edits to get something good out of it?

I'm pretty sure folks were trying to help by showing her simple ways to improve it. Mom is being a mom so she only sees her son. My eye has less affection for the lad and was drawn to the massive building on taking up the right quarter of the shot...

 

[The_Traveler]

and this......

There must be dozens of them, but I'll start:

B/W photos with selective colorization of one part only. I've done this a million times (once recently), but I cringe every time I see a photo by someone else like this.

What do you look at and say "Oh no, not again!"???

 

[Solarflare]

I really dont know if its te way i take the photos or how i dont knkw how to edit them. Please give me feed back in to what im not doing right. I want sharp deep in color photos! Heres photos i did on a one year old.

Well simply for better colors you can use:

(a) careful exposure (dont overexpose or underexpose the important parts, or you lose color information in either case; with digial especially severe in anything thats overexposed)

(b) better/larger sensor (specifically more color depth)

(c) last not least - better optics

Better colors is one of the reasons why I use a D750 and not just a point and shoot.

 

[charchri4]

+1 traveler^. I'm not a fan of that either but if it was going to work at all it would have been to have the boy in color and the pumpkins in bw

 

[The_Traveler]

+1 traveler^. I'm not a fan of that either but if it was going to work at all it would have been to have the boy in color and the pumpkins in bw

I was trying to say that, unless there is a reason that a substandard image needs to be rescued at any costs because there is no possibility of a reshoot, we should recognize when images really aren't good enough to keep, especially for someone who is or is going to be a professional.
Would this ever be an image that a pro would be on their website, even Facebook?

Respect the maker, tell them this one should be tossed.

 

[charchri4]

You kidding? If my kid was that cute he'd be all over FB no matter how crappy the shot!

 

[The_Traveler]

You kidding? If my kid was that cute he'd be all over FB no matter how crappy the shot!

Perhaps that's the point.
Why should we be caring about whether the 'kid is cute' and making a splash with one's friends on Facebook?
Isn't helping a photographer to get better at practicing a craft a better goal than making yet one more FB wonder?

 

[Derrel]

If you "want to get better", the easiest way to do that is to buy an instructional manual that covers many dozen of the basic aspects of picture-making. In my opinion, the John Hedgecoe photography books are some of the best instructional manuals in photography. Hedgecoe was the first-ever full professor of photography at London's Royal College. His instruction is geared toward adults. His books have many,many,many small illustrations and diagrams that illustrate each teaching point. There have been very few books that are done with an many illustrations and diagrams as his many books.

One problem with learning from YouTube videos or the web sites and blogs is that the "teaching" found in those formats is often scattershot, half-baked, and in many cases, just flat-out lousy. Learning from a book designed by an accomplished instructor and author means that your course is layed out for you, in a book, with a chapter list, and an index, and over 1,000 illustrations with what to do and also some what not to do photos, and plenty of simple, clear, proven advice in how to find light, how to see light, how to position your subjects in relation to the light, how to compose photos, and how to use the camera to make good, solid photos.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Digital-Photography-John-Hedgecoe/dp/0756623545/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=51K5rgBvF7L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR133,160_&refRID=0A1J9H31JKY94S8RRJ9D