anyone want a steak?

[rx7speed]

so my dad was doing some BBQ tonight and figured I would snap a few shots here and then try touch them up a little as I'm new to doing any kind of PP work, plus I never really took a picture of food so figured why not.
all shots done with XSI using the 50 1.8 lens and hotshoe flash. head on for the first set of pictures, bounced for the second set.
if you want larger pictures just click the link.

1)original
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3205/2782613447_de95959387.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/rx7speed/2782613447/
1/200 f2.5 100iso

2)retouched.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3280/2782615541_9837a39844.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/rx7speed/2782615541/



3)original
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3251/2782646497_9bd338f890.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/rx7speed/2782646497/
1/200 f/4 iso 100

4)touched up
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3120/2782650881_22cb44e62d.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/rx7speed/2782650881/


please any help here would be nice.
EDIT:also just noticed picture 4 the plate and tomatos looks horrible. though I'm not 100% as to why. I think a little white balance tweak and some lightening up of the tomatoes would help maybe? I will try to fix that though wont be till tomorrow

[thefooz]

First series: Exposure looks good. I would have left out the tongs and the second steak in the background, turned the flames up a bit so they're surrounding the steak, decrease the DOF to focus on the steak, and crop it tighter. Also, maybe shoot it from a different perspective. Right now, it looks just as it would if I was standing above the grill, looking down at it. Maybe get lower and closer to the meat. As is, it looks more like a shot documenting your bbq. Also, If you wanted to keep the second steak in there, I would have had it cooked to the same lever of doneness as the front steak.

Second series: The first photo is fine, white balance-wise, maybe a touch red, but almost unnoticable. Second shot looks green or yellow to me. I can't decide, but I'm leaning towards yellow. The steak looks tasty in the first shot and rancid in the second. I would have stuck with the white balance of the original. It looked fine, exposure-wise, just again, kind of a boring perspective. Also, when taking photos of food, I find it best to keep the plates immaculately clean, same with the silverware. A dirty plate makes the photo look sloppy and the food unappetizing. But you can cook me a steak anytime you want. Nice grilling.

Keep playing with the juxtaposition of colors, DOF, and perspectives and you'll come up with some interesting and dynamic photos in no time. You definitely know how to cook, so try something different (photography-wise) each time you make something. Do keep in mind that food is one of the hardest things to photograph well, which is why pros often use fake food for their shoots (shaving cream as a stand-in for whipped cream, etc.).

Finally, I'm far far far from a professional photographer, so take what I say with a grain of salt and let me know if I'm overstepping my bounds. I can be pretty brutal with my honesty sometimes and it rubs some people the wrong way.

Good luck, and I can't wait to see more of your work.

[Nathan]

I think the flame on the grill was a little low, which caused the beef to cook a little unevenly. The lower heat started to cook the beef. I would try to grill at a slightly higher heat in order to create a more even redness to the rare to medium rare steak while also creating a more charred exterior.

Otherwise, you have a pretty good looking piece of steak there.

By the way... do you cut along the grill lines?:p

[rx7speed]

I'll be honest in that when I was making these shots I wasn't worrying about composition too much as my goal was more to get pictures to play with the coloring on to help me learn to post process. Plus I was afraid to get close to the flames as I didn't want to hurt the camera. what can I say but I'm a wimp.
As far as the first set of pictures that I took. Did I "cook" the steak too much with darkening the shadows on that? On the tongs is it just me or does the lighting look a little unatural? should I of left the bright highlights in there like on the original picture?

on set number two what would of been a better way to get a good percpective on this shot?

the grilling was done by my dad, and I was just the little kid that kept getting in the way :). Reign when he was cooking the steaks he actually had to throw them back on cause the outside was fairly more or less done but the inside wasn't well cooked. Also I'm not much of a steak fan so I didn't eat any. he made some hamburgers today and I grabbed a picture of that if you don't mind giving a little feedback on that also here.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3273/2789071718_0d9fe5b638.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/rx7speed/2789071718/
1/40 f/2.8 iso 100. bounced the flash off the back lid of the BBQ.
on this one for PP I mainly just did the same by dodge/burn (whichever darkens) on the shaddows of the burgers. Then brought down the midtones of the grill then added a little gaussian blur to the grill itself trying to distance it a bit from the main burger. Any idea though why the burger turned a little orange/reddish in doing this? does that color cast detract though or add to the burger since it kind of matches the flames a bit?


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3100/2789041896_00576ac079.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/rx7speed/2789041896/
and fooz don't worry if you come off harsh. as long as you have some good advice and don't just put me down I'm cool with some bluntness.

[Bill Boehme]

Right now I am hungry and it is all your fault. :p

Composition wise, I like the edits on both images. I think that the plate should have been cleaner and things are a little dark in both images. If you have not gotten into using layers for editing, I think that you will find it to be a very creative tool for working separately on different element of the image.

[rx7speed]

I haven't really played with layers yet. what is the difference really with playing with layers vs just applying your edits all to the same image?

[Bill Boehme]

I haven't really played with layers yet. what is the difference really with playing with layers vs just applying your edits all to the same image?

When using layers, especially if using Photoshop and ACR, there is a lot of room for creativity by isolating different parts of an image into separate layers, each of which can be processed in ACR. Basically, when using layers, a mask is applied to each image layer to isolates a particular part of the image (initially each layer starts out looking the same as the original image). As the final step, the layers can be blended together with different amounts of opacity to get the desired effect for the overall appearance of the final image.

When editing is done without using editing layers, then any changes that you make to an image to optimize the appearance of a particular part of it (such as enhancing the appearance of the steak) are also applied to the whole image, which may not necessarily be be best thing.

If you are a Photoshop user (or Elements user, I presume), I would recommend a very good beginner's book on the subject, "Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Photoshop CS3". It is basically a cookbook type of tutorial with about 21 separate lessons and by the time that you get to the end, you will have a fairly good understanding of using layers. I didn't care much for some of his special effects because I thought that they were not very good, but overall, it is still a very worthwhile text.

[thefooz]

Rx7, now we're talking! The second set is fantastic. The burgers look juicy, the perspective is interesting, the lighting is perfect, and I really dig the visible flame. I honestly don't have anything to critique about the second set. Fantastic job! I can't wait to see more.