Suggestions of PP this photo... C&C Please

[bremner53]

So I did some photos for some friends.....

The photos are dull. Boring. I am working on this.... Going to spend all weekend shooting.

How would you edit this photo? I love it, because it suits their personalities, but the sky is blown... oops. Please feel free to edit it, I have done NOTHING to these photos, they are straight out of the camera.

2. How do I rotate this photo in CS2? I can't remember, I could google it though. The rock wall was on a slope and I forgot to compensate for that.

3.

 

[sobolik]

I notice that they are all centered. It is too late for that to be edited but on the first one I would have liked less of the nothing on the left edge and more of the interesting whatever it is peeking on the right edge. i.e. should have positioned subjects off center left.

However you can do damage control by cropping near to her right hair (our left) , the bottom of the feet, leave the entire right edge and however it shakes out on the top when cropping at 4x6.

Centered is often dull and boring. Slightly off is almost always better. Have you ever noticed that Hollywood (where a bazillion dollars are spent before "publication") almost never have the subjects square and centered.? Do likewise.

 

[KmH]

They all needed supplimental lighting.

The adults have 'racoon eyes', and they are not separated well from the background because of the overcast skies.

Mom has trees growing out of her head in both shots.

I would add a vignette and fill light to each and carefully dodge the adults eye sockets. I would selectively sharpen each.

 

[bremner53]

Okay... Flash. Will play around with it more tomorrow, I jsut got it and don't entirely understand how to work it yet.

Why do I NEVER notice the things growing out of peoples heads? seesh. I have had Tree's and fence posts now.

 

[Derrel]

I think the black point in all the photos needs to be carefully set in post. Your pics do not seem to have any deep,dark,rich true blacks, and so the contrast range is a little bit "off". There needs to be a proper black point set in the red,green,and blue channels, and then the images can be adjusted to look a bit more snappy and crisp. As KmH noted, there is some slight raccoon eyes effect due to the backlighting, so some careful adjusting of the lighting on the faces of the people would be helpful.

 

[bremner53]

I think the black point in all the photos needs to be carefully set in post. Your pics do not seem to have any deep,dark,rich true blacks, and so the contrast range is a little bit "off". There needs to be a proper black point set in the red,green,and blue channels, and then the images can be adjusted to look a bit more snappy and crisp. As KmH noted, there is some slight raccoon eyes effect due to the backlighting, so some careful adjusting of the lighting on the faces of the people would be helpful.

Okay.... Not to sound clueless, but..... I am kinda clueless. I don't understand how to set the black point in post. I understand and see that my photos don't have any rich colors, could this be due to not having black points? I am unsure what exactly you mean when you say black points, but I do see that there are not any dark rich black points, LOL

Sorry for all the confusion! I really appreciate your help!!

 

[bremner53]

I think the black point in all the photos needs to be carefully set in post. Your pics do not seem to have any deep,dark,rich true blacks, and so the contrast range is a little bit "off". There needs to be a proper black point set in the red,green,and blue channels, and then the images can be adjusted to look a bit more snappy and crisp. As KmH noted, there is some slight raccoon eyes effect due to the backlighting, so some careful adjusting of the lighting on the faces of the people would be helpful.

Okay.... Not to sound clueless, but..... I am kinda clueless. I don't understand how to set the black point in post. I understand and see that my photos don't have any rich colors, could this be due to not having black points? I am unsure what exactly you mean when you say black points, but I do see that there are not any dark rich black points, LOL

Sorry for all the confusion! I really appreciate your help!!

bump

 

[LightSpeed]

 

[clanthar]

Hi,

The black point in the two family shots is OK, but it's off in the photo of the dog. This refers to the photos tonal distribution. If you open the photo of the dog in Photoshop and examine the histogram for the photo you'll see that it doesn't extend to the far left corner (black). As a result the photo appears flat -- lacking contrast.

This is best corrected using Levels in Photoshop.

The lighting when you took these photos was overcast and very flat. As such your photos could benefit from a boost in contrast.

Overcast light is blue and your camera failed to white balance for the light color. These photos have a blue color cast which is particularly bad for photos of people. With all of the above in mind here's two of the photos. The biggest improvement comes from removing the blue color cast. I may have gone a little far in the other direction but with portraits it's best to err on the warm side.

Joe