My Daughter...

[ctymom]

Please tell me when you all take pictures that they dont all turn out great. I have a hard time with focus on my camera. I'm still learning all the settings and dealing with light. I get so frustrated with myself when I go through shots I've taken and get only a couple decent ones. Like the following one was the best out of 3 I took. My daughter just wasnt cooperating with me at all. She wanted to look everywhere but at me and the camera. She must be getting tired of it. LOL Anyway... any feedback or suggestions would be appreciated. And let me know if I'm not alone on not getting great(decent) shots on a regular basis.

http://www.designsbypam.com/photography/albums/userpics/10001/erica-oct.jpg

Thanks for looking!

Pamela

[codex0]

Best out of 3, eh? I wish I had odds like that :D. Usually out of 100 shots I get about 10 that I like, about 5 of which I take the time to photoshop (when taking pictures of marching bands). Anyway, this is a beautiful shot :). I particularly like the backlighting. I would, however, like to see this a little bit warmer, as her face seems almost too white (maybe even with a little bit of a bluish tint). Anyway, try not to get frustrated - it's pictures like these that make all the effort worthwhile ;). Thanks for sharing!

[rklepper]

I have found that the best approach is to take a great number of pictures and then delete the bad ones. That is really the joy of digital to me, choosing what to keep.

[ctymom]

Thanks so much codex0 and rklepper for your feedback. codex... You're right about it being "too white". Although she does take after me in the department of pale people. LOL I'll have to play around and get better color in her skin.

And thanks for the reinsurance! It's so easy to get discouraged in the beginning. Sometimes I think I try too hard b/c I used to take great pictures and didnt think twice. Maybe I need to get back to that and just take pictures.

rklepper... I have a hard time deleting even the bad ones. LOL Well, the really bad ones I delete, but even bloopers I end up keeping just because. And true... certainly the joy of digital!

Pamela

[benttop]

That is a beautiful child, and a wonderful capture. I wish I could say I get one like this in three I've taken. Your odds are significantly higher than mine! I usually take a hundred to get three to five that I'll post.

Excellent capture - did I already say that? :)

[pc411guy]

Whew! I was beginning to think that I was the only one! I'll shoot off a hundred or so on an outing thinking that I'm going to get 40 or 50 that are REALLY good. When in reality I get 7 or 8. And even then I usually have to photoshop them to get them great!

Awesome pic! You've got a real cutie there!

[JMHPhotography]

try that success rate with film... :P warming that picture up would be REALLY easy in photoshop. Otherwise that is a GREAT capture. I LOVE her eyes.

[ctymom]

Thanks so much everyone! You comments have made me feel better about my photos :) I will try my hand at the picture again tonight and warm it up like a couple of you have mentioned.

Thank you for all the feedback and reassurances! Greatly appreciated :)

Pamela

[rklepper]

Thanks so much codex0 and rklepper for your feedback. codex... You're right about it being "too white". Although she does take after me in the department of pale people. LOL I'll have to play around and get better color in her skin.

And thanks for the reinsurance! It's so easy to get discouraged in the beginning. Sometimes I think I try too hard b/c I used to take great pictures and didnt think twice. Maybe I need to get back to that and just take pictures.

rklepper... I have a hard time deleting even the bad ones. LOL Well, the really bad ones I delete, but even bloopers I end up keeping just because. And true... certainly the joy of digital!

Pamela

If you like them and get some enjoyment from them then they really are not bad. Keep them.

[Tess320]

I think it's a great photo.

I take about 100 photos at a time and only end up very happy with about 5!

Nat

[Art Rodriguez]

I can take about 100 pictures and none of them come out good:) BTW, she has beautiful eyes.

Art

[staereo]

Last night I took 157 pictures. Out of that, I'd say about 60 were 'photoshoppable' or better (100 in the trash before I even converted). About 15 or so only required exposure compensation when converting from raw to tif, and 1 or 2, out of the 157 pictures, were fine as taken. SO, am I frustrated? naw, I took a couple good pics last night. Thats how you gotta look at it. Theres a reason we like digital. The 100 pics that I tossed didnt cost me a dime. And my freedom to be shutter happy allows me to get shots I may have hesitated on otherwise.

So, once I'm on my pc, I check out the ones I really liked, and the ones I threw away. Checked out the camera settings when I took the pictures, and learned for the next time I'm in a situation like that. GREAT tool.

Bruce

[ctymom]

Your responses have been so helpful! I'm glad I finally posted about my concerns on the number of "good" photos ratio.

Here is a retry on the coloring. I'm still fairly new to this and no, I havent had time to learn PhotoShop yet. It's on my to-do list! :rolleyes: But I do have the new Corel Paint Shop Pro that is now geared toward photography. Anyway... let me know what you think.

http://www.designsbypam.com/photography/closeup.jpg

I wanted to add another picture for fun. I actually took 4 photos so these are 2 of the 4 ;)

http://www.designsbypam.com/photography/erica-spider.jpg

Thanks!
Pamela

[Salleke]

The second serie is very nice and the colours are warm and do "pop" out now. Lovely little girl.

[ctymom]

Thank you very much Salleke :)

Pamela

[verT]

I really like the second series the colours look a lot warmer.

As for the ratio of good to bad photos, I have taken 3000 photos and had prints made of maybe 150-200 and of those I have had about 10 blown up to 8X10. With digital I think I am very critical of my own photographs. I never delete any pictures I have taken unless it a "just want to see what this does" picture.

[JMHPhotography]

Both are very nice... and the first does look a bit warmer which is good. Photoshop is a GREAT tool to learn and the nice thing is, if you know PSP, the learning curve isn't nearly as steep. They all fundamentally work the same. Layers/Channels/filters/brushes... etc... The differences are values and tool locations. I've actually done a few editing projects in three different packages to see how different it was to get the same results. While Photoshop is clearly more robust, being geared toward working professionals, the other two I tested with were GNU's Gimp package and PSP. You'd be surprised at how very similar they are were to each other. :)

[ctymom]

Thanks verT :) I delete alot of the "just want to see what this does" pictures too. But other than that, I have a hard time deleting just in case in the future I can do something with them.

forkball.... it's good to know they are fairly similiar with results. I've been messing around with the Photoshop Elements 2.0 and other software that came with the 20D. But some of the editing I still go back to PSPx just because I'm faster with it and know my way around.

Pamela

[stoneylonesome]

Those are wonderful shots, and if you can get 1 out of 3 or 2 out of 4 you are doing great. Your daughter is very cute and photogenic, looks to me like she was having fun hamming it up for the camera. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[round]

Sometimes there's some pressure as I always worry about whether I have a good shot especially when the occassion is special and no second chance.

My wife has doubt why guys use DSLR instead of simple DC as she has more keepers (with her DC), lighter and easy to use.

[PEACHMAN]

holy moly ...those ,especially #1 are wonderful...

[ctymom]

Stoneylonesome... she is a bit of a ham but next to impossible to get pictures. I think as soon as she sees the camera, she looks everywhere but at me. LOL Everyone use in a while she'll give me a nice shot. But I have to work for it.

round... i can imagine the pressures of doing this professionally and needing to get good shots first time around. I guess that will be easier once I know my camera.

Peachman... thanks so much! ;)

Pamela