Newbie with pictures of children

[ashjamesgav]

Hello all,

I'm not only a newbie to this forum, but also a newbie to owning a DSLR. I upgraded from a little Sony Cybershot, so there's a whole world of opportunity in front of me now. I bought a Canon 40D a little over a week ago, and am venturing onto the world of Manual Exposure, although I still have a long, long way to go. I am currently using... *GASP*... The kit lens. It's a 28-135, and I'm fine with it for now, until I can afford an upgrade. I'm using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 to edit the pictures, and I'm a newbie when it comes to that, too. I look up tutorials almost every single time I have to perform a new technique, and am learning that the possibilities with Photoshop are seemingly endless, so how to learn them all? Well, practice, I suppose!

Oh, also... I designed the logo last night, what do you think? It looks a little distorted because it's small (these are not originals of the photos, I'm on my laptop, these are from a website)... I just can't figure out how to add the logo in photoshop and make it so that there aren't those little specs around it once I save.

Anyways, with all of that in mind, I give you a couple of shots...

Any tips/advice welcome!

01. Gavyn (My son, he will be 2 in January)

02. Rachel

03. Tyler

 

[El2]

Cute kids. Only c/c is I think they are a bit dark. You can up the exposure to make them brighter.

 

[anastasiasa]

Cute kids. Only c/c is I think they are a bit dark. You can up the exposure to make them brighter.

Cute lookin kids, and pictures do appear on the darker side. Better exposure, and maybe a better backgound than that wall.

 

[Jon_Are]

Hi Ashley, welcome!

Here we go...

(don't forget, you asked for it :mrgreen

• None of the photos are in focus; in portraits, the eyes should be sharp as a tack.
• Work on your framing/composition. In each of the photos you cut off the top of your kids' heads, not to mention their hands and feet.
• Seeing the wall as the background just screams 'snapshot'. Nothing wrong with snapshots, but it sounds like you want to take it to the next level.
• The flash is really harsh - see the shadow on the wall behind Tyler? The only way to fix this is either use an off-camera flash or, even better, learn to use natural lighting.
• Looks like you've got at least three willing and cute subjects to work with. Keep practicing and show us more.

Best of luck,

Jon

 

[fabio_yamauti]

The flash is casting shadows behind the children =(
Like Jon said, I also prefer natural lighting but if it's necessary using the flash, then try to bounce it on the ceiling.

Fabio

 

[kombizz]

You need to have a BETTER lighting much b4 KLIKING