Pic of Duck for C&C

[odiy33]

Went out to take some shots yesterday and really wanted to work on paying attention not to my frame my shots with distractions in the background. I thought the setup (not that there was a ton, just waited for the duck to float in a part of the lake where the water looked smooth and uninterrupted. I like the pic, but feel another thing I need to work on is post editing.

Unedited pic

Edited: Tried to make the water look a little smoother and make the duck look softer. I also used the spot tool to remove debris in the water and cropped the photo so that the duck wasn't dead center. I chose to put him upper right so that it appeared he had room in front of him to continue on his path. (Trying to incorporate some things they are teaching us in class)

Then a B&W shot

 

[Kbarredo]

Second one is over saturated

 

[misstwinklytoes]

Very much. Your water kind of resembles nuclear waste or something, lol. Really like the first one best. Maybe some exposure bump, but everything looks most natural there.

 

[Photo Lady]

First one is really nice.. perhaps a little cropping to bring the duck closer

 

[iNick]

That is indeed a Duck. #1 is underexposed #2 is over saturated.

 

[odiy33]

Thanks people, I agree #2 is over saturated, I think i got a little carried away with adjusting the sliders like a mad man in photoshop. I think I'll try again, this time take the original, crop it as I did with #2 and #3, and not touch anything except bump up the exposure just a tad and use the spot tool to remove those white fuzzies.

 

[Ryan L]

1 underexposed, 2 oversatursted

3 is blah it looks like you maxed the fill light, slid the contrast all the way down, removed any trace of black.

 

[odiy33]

Is this one an improvment over the first three? (All I did is re-crop it, and brought down the temp a little bit and bumped up the clarity just a bit.

 

[Ryan L]

Is this one an improvment over the first three? (All I did is re-crop it, and brought down the temp a little bit and bumped up the clarity just a bit.

coloring and exposure on the duck look much better, I may still bump the contrast up though.

 

[cnutco]

The set-up should have included a few test shots to select the best exposure. The idea is to set the camera up as much as possible before you take the shot you want to keep. A picture that is the most correct in-camera is going to be the best after post production too.

 

[odiy33]

The set-up should have included a few test shots to select the best exposure. The idea is to set the camera up as much as possible before you take the shot you want to keep. A picture that is the most correct in-camera is going to be the best after post production too.

Thanks for the advice, this is something I really would like to work on, and I do take many test shots, but my main issue is when I'm shooting in daylight, very hard to get a good idea on exposure because of glare on my LCD screen, which brings me to my next question, do you our anyone out there have any suggestions on any hoods our anti glare covers that work good for this problem, looking for one that is not too expensive

 

[The Future]

I'm very new as a photographer as well, so I understand your issues with reading the LCD and finding the proper exposure. I'm not sure your make and model of camera but if it has a histogram I recommend highly learning how to read that. It was seriously the best thing I have done to improve my shots straight from the camera.

 

[cnutco]

What kind of camera do you have? It should have a metering system in-camera.

 

[odiy33]

What kind of camera do you have? It should have a metering system in-camera.

I have a nikon 3100, when reviewing pics if I push up on directional button does tell me all settings and histogram for pic taken, not sure on how to read histagram yet, usually just take bunch of test shots until It looks the way I want, but hard to judge by eye on small LCD in daylight