The Tutorial Thread!

[amolitor]

Some people seem to have trouble seeing features of photographs, like color balance, exposure, stuff like that. They go 'aha!' when someone edits the thing for them, but they can't see the problem in the original. I am pretty good at seeing this stuff, probably because I've looked at a lot of sets of pictures like the one attached, I suppose.

There are many more dimensions to an image than the four indicated here. In fact, there are many more dimensions to each of the features depicted here -- color balance go go wildly off in infinitely many directions, so don't get fooled into thinking it's just a "redder/bluer" thing, for instance. The column of images down the middle are "straight" (and not really all that good, but whatever) and the columns to either side represent alterations in the indicated parameter, of roughly equal amounts in roughly opposite directions.

When you can see how every image differs from every other one and why, you'll know something. Look at the colors and the brightnesses, in the lighter areas, the darker areas, and the middle areas, and see how they related to each other, image to image. Are the colors the same but differ in intensity? Are the colors different? Are the dark areas darker but the light areas pretty much the same? And so on.

This is BY NO MEANS a complete education in looking at photographs.



This image is public domain, for whatever that's worth. I made it, I declare it so.