Indoor Picture Critique

hsphotos · Jan 23, 2012

Would love some input on the pictures I took indoors the other day and what I could increase/decrease to make them look better! Taken with a D90 and kit lens.

1. I really don't like all the noise/grain in the background of this one, any idea on how I could get rid of that?

Exposure 0.013 sec (1/80) Aperture f/5.0 Focal Length 52 mm ISO Speed 800

2.

Exposure 0.025 sec (1/40)
Aperture f/3.5
Focal Length 18 mm
ISO Speed 250

3. *I had a lot of natural light in this photo - it was right by the doors to go outside and they were open.

Exposure 0.013 sec (1/80)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 35 mm
ISO Speed 250

The_Traveler · Jan 23, 2012

Your profile is marked 'pictures not ok to edit'
that makes it much more difficult to help

hsphotos · Jan 23, 2012

Okay, I changed it. I'd love the know the settings/steps you take on whatever editing you do, too, so I know!

SCraig · Jan 23, 2012

Got rid of a lot of that really distracting background

A little Noise Ninja and white balance

hsphotos · Jan 23, 2012

How were you able to get rid of the noise?? And it looks like the skin is much softer then on my picture - could you explain that to me, too?

hsphotos · Jan 23, 2012

I use lightroom, by the way.

EIngerson · Jan 23, 2012

The noise can be reduced with many different editing programs. Lightroom is pretty good.

What do you think of the differences? Unfortunately, the noise will be there at those ISO settings with that gear. Adding a flash will help you lower the ISO and get rid of it. I think they came out pretty good considering the gear and conditions.

hsphotos · Jan 23, 2012

I really like the close up of the baby. I think it looks 10 times better then the original. What sliders do you need to do to reduce the noise? I was playing around with it myself, and this is what I ended up doing:

What ISO would you recommend for those lighting conditions? I tried SO hard to get better lighting in that place, including opening all of the windows and turning all the lights on lol

I still feel like your edits really just made the picture pop. Can you explain what you did to do that?

SCraig · Jan 23, 2012

EIngerson said:
The noise can be reduced with many different editing programs. Lightroom is pretty good.

What do you think of the differences? Unfortunately, the noise will be there at those ISO settings with that gear. Adding a flash will help you lower the ISO and get rid of it. I think they came out pretty good considering the gear and conditions.

^^ What he said. I use the standalone version of Noise Ninja however there is a plugin version for Photoshop that would (presumably) work in Lightroom as well. You can download it and try it for nothing Here.

Just be careful not to overdo the effect or your detail will suffer. The skin is probably softer because I didn't go back and remove the noise reduction from her face so it softened the detail there as well.

Those were just very quick edits, by the way, only a couple of minutes each. I set a white point on her shirt since that should have been white and not yellow from the incandescent lighting. I then ran it through Noise Ninja very quickly to just get rid of the worst of the noise. The other one all I Did was crop some of the background out. Spending a little time on them would probably make them look much better.

hsphotos said:
What ISO would you recommend for those lighting conditions? I tried SO hard to get better lighting in that place, including opening all of the windows and turning all the lights on lol

I still feel like your edits really just made the picture pop. Can you explain what you did to do that?

The edits were quick and explained above.

You used ISO 800, I think. At 52mm on the first one you probably could have gone down a stop from 1/80 second which would have allowed you to drop the ISO to 400.

hsphotos · Jan 23, 2012

Is there a way to target specific areas like that in lightroom? I'm pretty new to the program, so I'm still trying to find my way around it.

SCraig · Jan 23, 2012

hsphotos said:
Is there a way to target specific areas like that in lightroom? I'm pretty new to the program, so I'm still trying to find my way around it.

Sorry, I can't help with that. I would suspect that there would be but I can't answer for sure since I don't use the software. If you can use layers in Lightroom just do your noise reduction on a copy of the original and then erase what you don't want it on. That way the original will show through with all the detail.

EIngerson · Jan 23, 2012

If you feel it wasn't bright enough then go higher. the sky is the limit. The point of raising the ISO is to get the shutter speed where it's supposed to be during lower light conditions. The image is still considered sharp if there is noise in it. I think you are guilty of the same expectations myself and many others have had about their cameras. The camera and lens by themselve are not going to get the results you expect them to in every situation. (That's why all of us buy so much gear :lol:

)

There's a couple things I recommend getting

A nice flash and some basic editing programs. I hope this helps a little.

EIngerson · Jan 23, 2012

hsphotos said:
Is there a way to target specific areas like that in lightroom? I'm pretty new to the program, so I'm still trying to find my way around it.

Which version are you using? you can apply noise reduction to the whole image and the parts that didn't have noise will look mostly unchanged.

There should be two sliders under the title "Noise Reduction" in your develop tab. "Luminance" and "Color"

Here's a good video

hsphotos · Jan 23, 2012

I have lightroom 3 - I know how to apply the luminescence stuff but I've never really liked the outcome =/ I am guilty of the SAME thing. I know I haven't been doing this long enough, but it's killing me on how to get my photos to look so much better. Like how SCraig edited the photo - I just feel like it's crisp and clear and the colors look great. I know it's experience and figuring things out, but I just want to know more. I should probably start looking up lightroom tutorials to explore the program more so I can use it better.

EIngerson · Jan 23, 2012

Absolutely learn more editing. A sharp, well exposed image straight out of the camera is the start point. I promise, you have never ooooo'ed and aahhhh'ed about an image that did not have some post processing done to it.

I look forward to seeing more of your photos. Don't forget to enjoy photography....