New guy needs some help

dave12b

TPF Noob!
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Jul 25, 2014
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Illinois
Can others edit my Photos
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Hi all. I am just trying to get back into photography after an 13 year lay off (surprisingly about the same time as my film cameras were stolen, got married, and had a kid). At the time, I was just a hobbyist with little training. Since then, my Wife's point and shoot and my cell phone has been all I used. Recently, I borrowed my Dad's DSLR and began messing around again, but I'm having a heck of a time. All the auto is great and all, but its a far cry from what I remember. In my college photojournalism class I learned how to use Photoshop with a negative scanner, but today's there are so many options today it is almost numbing. I downloaded GIMP, but besides figuring out how to crop, everything is far more complicated than where I am currently at. So I came on here and started reading/looking at everything I could.

This is my first real attempt at Macro. In the past, I mostly did street photography and some wildlife, but I had no use for the macro lens I used to possess. But like spinach, I seem to have acquired a taste for it later in life. I went with the family to a Wildlife Park and the best possibility for a macro shot was a flower in the butterfly enclosure. I cropped it in GIMP to a square aspect ratio (mostly because I always wanted a medium format camera back in the day), and tried to mess around with the colors. After an hour or so, I did not like where this was going and decided to come here for some honest C&C.

Here is the unedited(first) and edited (second) photos. Any help is appreciated.

flowerforisabel1 by lawson12b, on Flickr

flowerforisabel2 by lawson12b, on Flickr

Thanks in advance.

-dave
 
Last edited:
Welcome! There is a typo in your post regarding which photo is the (edited) version. Anyway, I think I can guess. There is quite a difference in color here, so I can understand that you got lost.

One of the first things I do is check/adjust the white balance. Ideally this should have been selected/customized when you took the picture. But afterward, you can see what the setting was, and probably go from there. If you remember colors well (not everybody does) you can just get the color to match what you remembered, or if you shot a grey card, use the WB tool in your software.
 
The second image looks like it has too much yellow. It's probably somewhere in between. The first one looks like it has too much blue.
The more you play around with the colors the more you will be able to control this type of editing.

I think Designer made a good point. If you want to be exact about colors, take a gray card.

If you want to be creative with the editing, play around with it some more.

Nice medium format!
 
Thank you both for your replies. I will look into getting a grey card. Quick question regarding white balance, can you adjust your camera's white balance settings on location with the grey card or is it just for reference in post? Also, I see GIMP has adjustments for grey, white, and black. Should I get a card with all three on it or should I just worry about mid grey? Thanks again.
 
You should be able to use just the black & white adjusters by picking a black and white spot on the photo (there is usually one of each, somewhere.)
 

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