my photos just stink!

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

Hi,
I just got back from scotland, only to find some of the most amazing scenery will have to be remembered in my head as the the photos i took with my digital camera were pretty bad.

on sunny days, the photos came out ok but the problem photos were on overcast days - the haziness seen around objects from the surounding cloud cover was awful, and definition of the objects was also quite poor.

I have a canon IXUS 500, and now i really want to learn to use it, can anyone recommend a website or even a book which can help me out so when my next set of holiday photos are not a dispointment.

thanks!
richard

[75D]

It would help if you cold post some of the pictures for us to see.

Wayne

[cosworth]

You'd be amazed what some post processing can do. If you post a link to a low compression file or a crop in low compression (no jpeg artifacts) we can see if there is a picture hiding in the file.

A good example of such here:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=120425&highlight=motox

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

It would help if you cold post some of the pictures for us to see.

Wayne

Yes fair call, here are some examples...

http://www.transmission7.com/uglyphotos/

as you can see, the clouds seem to overpower the photos, leaving them overexposed, flat, colourless and lacking any depth.

[DocFrankenstein]

That's not too bad, considering everything.

And the question you ask is not an easy one... it's like asking how to be a good driver or something similar.

I can give 2 tips:
1) be there during sunset/sunrise
2) learn to meter and use manual mode

[75D]

Hi Stone Cold
I see what you mean, the weather doesn't always cooperate when we're on vacation and we can't always be there when the lighting is at it's best, so we have to accept what we get and they will bring back the memories.
You must have been standing at the same spot as I was when you took this picture.
I have several shots taken from approximately the same spot.
Some post processing may be able to bring out some of the details but I found the same thing with a lot of my shots taken on overcast days.
Where else in Scotland did you visit beside Edinburgh?
Will be glad to share some photo's with you.

Wayne

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

1) be there during sunset/sunrise
2) learn to meter and use manual mode

1. - if only it were ever sunny in edinburgh, well not when i went anyway.

2. - i think your right about manual mode, lets say as a guide for me in future, should i set my camera to manual mode, turn off the AWB and set it to cloudy, and then perhaps play around with the compensation depending on the darkness of the clouds etc... does that sound about right? anything else you could recommend?

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

Hi Stone Cold
I have several shots taken from approximately the same spot.
Some post processing may be able to bring out some of the details but I found the same thing with a lot of my shots taken on overcast days.
Where else in Scotland did you visit beside Edinburgh?
Will be glad to share some photo's with you.

Wayne

yeah pretty much everyone i meet in edinburgh had the same set of photos! i have played around with filters in photoshop and yeah the photos do come out much nicer.

after edinburgh i did a 6 day haggis tour, which took me through the highlands and the isle of sky, some absolutely stunning scenery which photos just cant do justice to really. id be happy to see some of yours, heres are a few more of mine, the best of a bad bunch really!

http://www.transmission7.com/uglyphotos/morephotos.htm

[TongChen]

Thats what Scotland looks like most of the time, no? Ireland the same. I get sunburn in London when I go for visit, tho.

There's a saying: If you think everything you do stinks, check your shoes. You may not be one at fault..

[adebass]

I wouldnt say they stink atall. In fact the first of your second set is a very nice photo. I live here in Scotland and can sympathise with your predicament, the weather can throw up some challenging shooting conditions.
Firstly what i would suggest is to change to manual when you can as you can tell it not to metre on the dark foreground and blow out the sky. Whenever i find the problem is really quite tough (bright, white, overcast conditions) I always take a tripod and layer the photos later in photoshop.

[cosworth]

Shoot in RAW. Bracketing on a tripod can help you too.

The uglyphotos link.... #2 is a great picture for sure. There could be lots done with those shots! Get the data into the camera as best you can, then highlight said data with PP.

If you like, send me the original of that #2 and maybe we can see what can be brought out.

[Huckaback Photo]

Hi Richard
You were really suffering with not the best of conditions for some of your shots.
Get the light right in scotland and you will get some nice images.
I did think the second set had nice shots, no 1 is great.
sure there are ways to get back some impact in your first set, with photoshop etc.
Levels, colour adjustment, contrast, and USM etc.

don't know if you use actions but one such action set might be useful, to give a bit of kick in the colours etc.
visit here for Digital Velvia action. http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/TLRDigitalVelvia.htm

always shoot on the best quality your camera will allow,
bright skies can sometimes be a pain try a gradual filter. or as already mentioned above
try manual mode.

Martin (Huckaback Photo)

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

change to manual when you can as you can tell it not to metre on the dark foreground and blow out the sky.

alright cool, this could be a good tip, what metering mode will allow me to do this?

colsworth - you can get the full res photo here: http://www.transmission7.com/uglyphotos/IMGBIG_0748.JPG

it will be cool to see what you come up with.

[SuzyView]

Wow, that was amazing. I think it is impossible to be satisfied with photos that you take on vacation when the weather is bad. Once we took a 4 day vacation in Maine, scheduled whale watching, climbing cliffs, etc. It rained and there was a cloud over the whole state for 4 days. We never saw the ocean, we could only see the whales when they were 3 feet from us. It was a disaster, but we have nice shots of the fog. ;)

Your pictures are fine, just work on them after. That's all you can do.

SuzyView

[davidfig]

If you do not have photoshop, or don't want to learn such a heavy program. Than I would suggest irfanview. I increased the gamma, saturation and did an sharpen with this program. Simple and only took about 15 seconds.

http://www.irfanview.com

It would take more to work with the blown out sky.

One more thing, do you have a picture from the sunny side of the castle?

[zacker]

the second and third pics are awsome...just need a little PS and they will look awsome! Try to saturate the colors a bit and play with the brightness / contrast just a tuch and they will look fine, oh and a bit of un-sharp mask too. Im at work so im not near my beloved PS/CS 2 so my hands are tied for now!
-zacker-

[75D]

Stone Cold
Those are not so bad. I will arrange to get mine up for viewing when I get home, if not tonight then tomorrow. Haven't got access to them from work.

Wayne

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

If you do not have photoshop, or don't want to learn such a heavy program. Than I would suggest irfanview. I increased the gamma, saturation and did an sharpen with this program. Simple and only took about 15 seconds.

http://www.irfanview.com

It would take more to work with the blown out sky.

One more thing, do you have a picture from the sunny side of the castle?

cool, i can use PS but when it comes to image manipulation my understanding of exactly what does what is limited, i tend to just apply auto levels, i wouldnt really know how to fix the sky?

heres the castle from the sunny side:

http://www.transmission7.com/uglyphotos/IMG_0747.jpg

taken all of 5 mins b4 the other one, what a difference huh.

[rowan57]

StoneCold, if you dont mind, i messed around with one of your low-res pictures in photoshop (mainly for practice) and would like to post the result, if you post pictures to the forum you can set a preference to allow people to do this straight away.
If you dont want me to thats fine, its good practice for me either way :)

Cheers
Rowan

[cosworth]

alright cool, this could be a good tip, what metering mode will allow me to do this?

colsworth - you can get the full res photo here: http://www.transmission7.com/uglyphotos/IMGBIG_0748.JPG

it will be cool to see what you come up with.

I'll have a look when I get home!

[cosworth]

There was a great shot hiding in there!

http://www.jasonhollister.com/images/castle.jpg

[Salleke]

There was a great shot hiding in there! ...

You did a beautifull job with the picture. Can you please tell us what you did?

Thanks.

[cosworth]

Bicubic resize to 800. NOT bicubic sharpen
Double USM pass:
155%, 0.3, 0
Then 15%, 100 ,0
Then a levels adjustment (center slider) to +1.2
Lastly I ran a Provia action and set it at 45%. Save as with no compression.

PS, I did scoot the gamma down by like 0.0004 as I recall. just a touch to darken the water reflection. There was a light Neat Image pass for noise reduction as well. 40% reduction on half noise. These 2 didn't do much, but added to the pop.

Comments or questions on that are welcome.

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

StoneCold, if you dont mind, i messed around with one of your low-res pictures in photoshop (mainly for practice) and would like to post the result

yes please show us.

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

Bicubic resize to 800. NOT bicubic sharpen
Double USM pass:
155%, 0.3, 0
Then 15%, 100 ,0
Then a levels adjustment (center slider) to +1.2
Lastly I ran a Provia action and set it at 45%. Save as with no compression.


i just looked at the original image again, wow what a difference, it looks stunning.

i could quite easily recreate what you did above using your instructions but i think more helpful would be why you did the above - what parts of the photo made you decide to do what you did?

[garbidz]

sometimes it is a good idea just to buy postcards
at least one knows what one is getting

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

yeah i always buy a few postcards for some of the better landmarks, my camera is more like my diary, to remind me of the people, the places, the mood and the atmosphere at the time.

i did like suzyview's whale story, i guess all you can do is look back and laugh when that happens.

[delinian]

Your photos are pretty nice, and IMO salvageable with some PP work !

[rowan57]

Here we go, its not the best editing job but im fairly new to using PS and havent practiced too much on images.

Included is a After and Before copy of the picture.

Regards
Rowan

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v156/rowan57/Edit.jpg

[sageone]

Mess around with manual mode in poor weather conditions. When I shoot football games for the high school I work for and it rains, I'm constantly tweaking my settings depending on the shot I'm looking for. Fog and rain are tough to shoot in. Snow, on the other hand, is a piece of cake since it's so bright. Fog is tough, though you can get some cool looking shots if you're trying to use the fog as the main focal point of the capture.

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

on that note - how do i shoot in snow? im going to snowboarding in france for 10 days.

manual mode - spot metering, focus on white snow and take the pic - yeah? no?

[G M Fude]

Well... no. You're nearly right, though; I'd say that spot metering on the object you are taking the photo of would be better.

But we don't get much snow in Australia so I defer to the northern hemisphere experts! :)

[rayzolight]

That's not too bad, considering everything.

And the question you ask is not an easy one... it's like asking how to be a good driver or something similar.

I can give 2 tips:
1) be there during sunset/sunrise
2) learn to meter and use manual mode

ahhh, i think he's asking for some direction on where to learn how to properly meter.

[rayzolight]

Shoot in RAW. Bracketing on a tripod can help you too.

The uglyphotos link.... #2 is a great picture for sure. There could be lots done with those shots! Get the data into the camera as best you can, then highlight said data with PP.

If you like, send me the original of that #2 and maybe we can see what can be brought out.

PP?

[75D]

Hey Stone Cold
Well Christams took it's toll and am just now getting around to posting some of my shots of Edinburgh.
Looked at som of your shots and they are not bad at all, in fact I wish mine of Eilean Donan were as good as yours. We had a overcast cold day, with some rain so most of mine are not great.
Anyway here are a few shots of Edinburgh.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b313/SRT101/IMG_0391_1_1.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b313/SRT101/IMG_0329_1_1.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b313/SRT101/Img0002_1_1.jpg

[DocFrankenstein]

Febreeze should help...

Also if you wash them and try a different fixer or something

[stone.cold.steve.austin]

Anyway here are a few shots of Edinburgh.



i have been away in les deux alps in france, getting some horrid under exposed photos of the snow, can u post your photos again, i missed them.

[DavidW]

In snowy conditions, you'll probably need to dial in positive exposure correction, or use partial / spot metering on a foreground subject.

The meter will try to move the (white) snow to grey, hence underexposure. The same applies in reverse if the background is very dark - you'll need to dial in negative exposure correction to render the dark background as dark as you expect it to be (in other words, to prevent overexposure).



David