How to make these pictures better

[silve225]

I went out yesterday and it was a very cloudy day and was raining very lightly. And these are the pictures I got. But what I want to know is how can I improve my pictures both in photoshop and when i'm out there taking the pictures. thanks in advance

 

[480sparky]

A more interesting background would help. They're all underexposed as well.

In post, you could make 'em pop just by adjusting the curves.

 

[imagemaker46]

The ones I looked at could have been shot with a disposable camera. Background is an issue, not very clean, there is no separation at all. You want the cars to step outside of the background, using a narrower depth of field would help. Photos are a little flat as well.

 

[kathyt]

Push the cars into the water to make a big splash. Increase your shutter speed for the splash. That would be interesting.

 

[gsgary]

Get rid of the horrible water mark then delete them and shoot again in better lighting

 

[amolitor]

Warm up the color temp to make it look less gloomy.

S-curve curves adjustment to pop the tones a bit.

Increase saturation.

Crop in closer.

This shot's the only one that's worth much, since it gets some of that background separation, and it's not just some picture of a little SUV on a suburban street.



In general pay more attention to your backgrounds, avoid shooting on cloudy days unless you're really going for a gloomy feel. Watch out for reflections if you're shooting cars. Shoot better looking cars. Get in closer, unless you've got a REALLY GREAT background that you want to be part of the image.

 

[KmH]

As mentioned, they are all underexposed to one degree or another. Some are badly under exposed. Some not so badly.
So it looks like you need to learn more about exposure, and how to use the rear LCD, specifically the histogram feature.
Camera Exposure: Aperture, ISO & Shutter Speed
Understanding Digital Camera Histograms: Tones and Contrast
Understanding Digital Camera Histograms: Luminosity and Color

Which of your D5100's 3 metering modes did you use? (D5100 users manual page 68)
What shooting mode did you use? (D5100 users manual page 61)
Have you read about Exposure Compensation in your camera user's manual (PDF file on the software disc)? (D5100 users manual page 70)

For minimizing reflections in car windows, and to add some saturation to blues and greens, put a quality polarizing filter on the lens.

You posted 18 photos. That's good for getting some very general comments, which is what you have gotten.
18 is way to many for specific critique or comment on each one - they are not numbered/named/easily referred to individually.
At just 2 minutes per photo, someone would spend 36 minutes to C&C them all.

Which version/release of Photoshop do you have? - http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/photo-editing-tutorials.htm
If you want to edit, I recommend you shoot Raw files instead of JPEG's.

 

[KmH]

I picked one that had the least background distractions to do a quick and dirty edit:
In ACR 6 (CS 5 Camera Raw)
I used the White Balance tool.
In the Presence section I added +42 of Clarity, +40 of Vibrance.
I used the Adjustment brush to add +0.5 EV to the exposure of the cars and parts of the pavement. I added -0.5 EV, to the sky. I added a blue Gradient Filter to the sky. Using the adjustment brush, I added +25 more Clarity to the cars.
On the Sharpening panel I used 25, 1.0, 25, 0.
In Photoshop CS 5:
I cropped the image.
I used the Clone tool and the Spot healing tool to remove light poles, wires, etc. (local edits)
I used the Topaz Adjust plug-in to globally adjust the mid-tone contrast.
I added a thin black border.

 

[silve225]

Thanks everyone. I really appreciated you taking your time in helping me.

I do shoot in RAW but when I export the pictures out of lightroom 4 I turn them into jpeg's. I also have photoshop cs 5.5 which I didn't use for these pictures. im going to go through everything you all said and try again and then post on a few of the best pics. thanks again