Suggestions Please - First Post (Please be gentle)

[darrenb]

This is the first image I've posted - so I hope it works.

I would be grateful of any comments as how to get the best out of this photo of my youngest son from our holiday last year. It's a photo that's been begging for me to do something with. I recently sent it off to Bonus Print for it to be printed at 18x12, but I'm not too happy with the results. Personally I just find the photo says so much about the innocence of a 2 year old, but it’s crying out for some dramatic post processing, I was tending towards B&W, but don’t know if losing the colour of the chocolate ice cream will be too much. I appreciate the image may look a tad dark, I think this was down to my JPEG conversion/compression.

Any help in direction would be appreciated
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/d.bardsley/101_0131.jpg
exif info:
File Name
101_0131.CRW
Camera Model Name
Canon EOS 10D
Shooting Date/Time
02/07/2003 15:42:26
Shooting Mode
Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed )
1/180
Av( Aperture Value )
3.5
Metering Mode
Center-weighted averaging
Exposure Compensation
0
ISO Speed
100
Lens
50.0mm
Focal Length
50.0mm
Image Size
3072x2048
Image Quality
RAW
Flash
Off
White Balance
Auto
AF Mode
AI Focus AF
Parameters
Contrast Normal
Sharpness Normal
Color saturation Normal
Color tone Normal
Color Space
sRGB

[martcol]

Darrenb, that's a difficult photo to critique. On one level it's a magnificent shot. It has plenty of detail and lots going on to catch your attention and imagination. The out of focus cone at the front is interesting. The way it is keeps the attention in the face like a good portrait should but it's also a part of the story and makes me wish it was in focus. That's not a problem, its an observation and comes from what the photo means to me.

The photo then is a mix (perhaps too much of a mix) between candid and straight portrait work. It looks to have a little too much red in it but then, it might have been a hot sunny day and the child has caught the sun. I prefer to remove red from my portraits when I can because it gives a slightly harsh look and is less flattering. That's a very personal thing and again, hard to critique.

I'll get back to where I started... I like the shot. It seems to offer a range of possiblities that makes it sit uncomfortably between the two models as I said. But that in itself has some value. I think a B&W version could do well but that would probably jumble things up again!

I hope I haven't rambled too much. I enjoyed looking at your photo.


Thanks for posting

Martin

[darrenb]

Martin

Thanks for the reply, you have echoed all my own thoughts and dilemmas, particularly about the B&W, I have tried the usual quick channel adjustments but, whilst I love B&W for these types of shots it kind of loses something as well. I take you point about the reds, as I said I think the image has definitely darkened up in translation to JPEG, although I seem to have had some difficulties in getting my head round PS-CS’ raw image viewer in the browser, you can make changes and when you exit without saving the changes seem to stay somehow, which makes getting back to the true raw image a little confusing.

With respect to focus/sharpness I have played with USM and got acceptable results. The shot by the way was very much candid, usual eating ice-cream around the pool on holiday in Halkadiki last year. There are some similar shots I’ve posted at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/d.bardsley/ if you care to look/comment.

Many thanks for your time and comments.

Darren

[Volatile]

That is about the most adorable thing I've ever seen.

I would make it a little brighter in Levels, but that's it.

Bill

[G3]

This is a good shot. I wouldn't change anything except maybe adjust levels a tad.

[Jemmind]

to me, the bit of blue is distracting in the left corner. If this was mine, I'd either crop it out or if I was good enough, I'd try to clone it out and make it look like his arm.
just my opinion
julie

[darrenb]

Thanks for all the replies.

The blue part on the arm is actually his armband as in this shot
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/d.bardsley/101_0135.jpg

Thanks again

[MrChevy]

Just a quick shot at this first one Darren.

First we look at the Histogram in the upper right side of PSCS.

http://home.comcast.net/~kenchevy/0131histo.jpg

Ok, we see we have to do some light Levels work to correct that slightly.
We move the right side button over to the left to the edge where things really start to change.
http://home.comcast.net/~kenchevy/0131levels.jpg


Then we do a re-size of the photo to the size we will post it at BEFORE we use USM on it.

Portrait photos we make 640 HIGH and let the width take care of itself.
Landscape photos we make 800 WIDE and let the height take care of itself.
http://home.comcast.net/~kenchevy/0131resize.jpg

Ok, now that it is re-sized we will use a little USM on the photo to make those beautiful blue eyes a little sharper! and give the rest of his face and hair a little more detail. Click the PREVIEW button on/off as you choose different settings to see what it looks like. When it looks Ok, save it.

http://home.comcast.net/~kenchevy/0131usm.jpg

Then, since you already have it in sRGB, we will do a Save For Web. We don't want to make a HUGH file, but we do want it to have pretty good detail so we choose quality until we have file size around 100-150kb. When we have that figured out, we save it. SOMETIMES the file will HAVE to be bigger because at the lower settings too much detail is lost. But usually 150kb's is big enough. For this photo 94kb looks Ok.

http://home.comcast.net/~kenchevy/0131sfw.jpg

Then we take a look and see what they (the original and the worked on one) look like side by side.
Looks better (to me, but everyone has different tastes in post editing).
http://home.comcast.net/~kenchevy/0131both.jpg

So we post the edited copy for comments.
Look at those eyes, beautiful :!: :!: Look at the sun burn from being in the sun too long :)

http://home.comcast.net/~kenchevy/0131.jpg

In my opinion THIS critique is what a critique should look like. SHOW the person you critiquing the photo for WHAT you mean when you say do this/do that. Do not just say do Levels, SHOW the Levels screen shot. Maybe the person you are posting it for already knows how to do it, maybe not. BUT, there are many who do not know exactly what you are saying who will learn something from the post because of the screen shots

What is the consensus, is this a good way to critique or a bad way?

[MrChevy]

...I think the image has definitely darkened up in translation to JPEG, although I seem to have had some difficulties in getting my head round PS-CS’ raw image viewer in the browser, you can make changes and when you exit without saving the changes seem to stay somehow, which makes getting back to the true raw image a little confusing.

Darren

Darren,

There are two boxes that control this:
http://home.comcast.net/~kenchevy/pscs1.jpg

Possibly that will help you understand how to get back to the "as shot" original.

[darrenb]

Ken

Thanks for the invaluable lesson, very much appreciated.


Darren.

PS I think this way of critquing is much better, but I' not sure we're all as capable of getting these images up on the boards as your goodself :cry:

[karusel]

These are neat family photos, but on the twisted side... they are just begging for photoshopping. :twisted:

Also, MrChevy has said it all (kudos!), I would have nothing valuable to add...