First Ever Recital Picture

[jpsamora]

My daughter had her first ever dance recital last night. Here is 1 picture from it. I could use some help with pp.

I shot in RAW. Opened the file using Adobe CS2 and adjusted the White Balance and exposure and cropped. Saved as a maximum quality jpeg and opened in CS2 again. Applied the reduce noise filter at the default strength of 7 and applied unsharp mask at 100%/ 1.0 / and 10.

What should I have done differently or what else can I do to help this picture along? All C&C is welcome and appreciated.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y198/jedisrus/Megan2.jpg

[sacral]

Nice pic!

I maybe would have decreased the shutter speed and the ISO to maybe try to eliminate some of the noise...how dark was it where you were taking this?

[René Damkot]

What should I have done differently

For starters: Convert to sRGB before posting on the web.

This is a heavy crop we are looking at (judging the noise)?

I'd get rid of the arm on the left.
Would have been nice if the feet were not cropped.

[Curtis N]

I shot in RAW. Opened the file using Adobe CS2 and adjusted the White Balance and exposure and cropped. Saved as a maximum quality jpeg and opened in CS2 again. Applied the reduce noise filter at the default strength of 7 and applied unsharp mask at 100%/ 1.0 / and 10.Normally you should be able to get a final image with a lot less noise unless...
1) Exposure was cranked up quite a bit with the RAW converter, or
2) It was heavily cropped so little downsizing is possible.

Downsizing is the best noise killer. Sharpening makes noise worse.

Run noise reduction first, then downsize to the extent possible, then sharpen.