I love it, but I hate it.

[Persian-Rice]

No really, I love this picture, but I sort of hate it. I dont know what it is.
Ill introduce you guys, this is my 2 1/2 year old cousin Jazmine.
I had the camera in hand, she was playing and I sort of snuck up on her......

http://servx.no-ip.com/~navid/Photography/Jaz.jpg

[LightHunter]

Crop the upper part just above her head and you will already like it better. Play a bit with the curves and you will love it!

[Meerkat17]

I'm with Frederic on this one also - it has a lot of potential for post-processing - I love the line of the girl and the background trees.

David

[Persian-Rice]

Thanks so far guys, I cropped it and yes its much better.

any suggestions or example with curves? i dont know where to start with that on this picture.

Here is a little bit of tweaking, i dont know if I made it worse or better lol. I think I added far too much red.

http://servx.no-ip.com/~navid/Photography/Jaz2.jpg

[Aylwin]

I like the photo but I get the sense that something is wrong with it. I think it's the focus. For people shots, I like to look at the face/head. However, in this shot the the head is a bit out of focus (or less sharp) compared to the dress so my eyes are drawn to the dress instead.

[Persian-Rice]

I like the photo but I get the sense that something is wrong with it. I think it's the focus. For people shots, I like to look at the face/head. However, in this shot the the head is a bit out of focus (or less sharp) compared to the dress so my eyes are drawn to the dress instead.
Finally, someone put a finger on it, thats why this bothers me..............
I think this one of my better pictures when it comes to composition and whatnot, thank god im newbie.

To be honest this picture was a bit underexposed, so I lightened it up. Then saw a lot of noise on her face, so I removed the noise. Thats what im guessing caused the "blur" on her face.

Bah, having a P&S is driving me nuts. I have soo many idea's but Im so limited. I seem to always have exposure problems with P&S cameras. Almost like I am trying to achiive something that is beyond my camera's limits. I tried shots with an old & cheap SLR the same day and got some really really nice pictures.

[timmyquest]

I dont care what any of you say...i love this one.

[Meerkat17]

I'm with you Timmyquest - its a great image.

Here's how I'd process it (hope you don't mind)

http://www.btinternet.com/~David.Lewins/g5/images/Jaz.jpg

All I've done is play with the curves in Lab Color mode, used a new layer set to Overlay and filled with neutral color of 50% to paint in the darks of the background then sharpend it a little using highpass.

I really love this image its so innocent and nicely composed - the dress makes the picture as it adds a splash of colour to the overall green of the image.

David

[LightHunter]

I dont care what any of you say...i love this one.

Good for you! And I agree but it can be optimized.

[NightEye]

What bothers me about it is that the background isn't blurred (not even just a bit). My eyes tend to draw towards the trees - looking for something interesting, but not finding it.

[Persian-Rice]

I agree with you nigtheye, but I sort of had a problem with that. Using a P&S as I am, opening the aperture to get that effect would require me to run a very high shutter speed. Unfortunatly thats a problem with my camera, trying to get blurry backrounds on sunny days is a major issue, that and trying to pan cars with slow shutters. I dont have the range to balance things out to get proper exposure. I forget the setting, but I remember getting this at f8, I could probably come down a few stops, but that was a user mistake, I didnt really have any time to set anything up.

Anyway I optimised this picture a little better, showed it it to her mom and now she wants me to take a ton of shots for her lol. I told her to wait till I buy my camera. I just sold my car and will use the money to make a small studio in my basement.

You gotta start somewhere, luckily there are a lot of women and litle girls in my family who tell me they want to be my subjects for practice.

Lucky me :roll: