My niece with gerber daisies.

[HillHey]

The last couple of threads I posted of my pictures, they were either underexposed or the white balance was off. I think I learned how to fix those problems.... but if not, let me know! These are of my niece in the park this morning. We wanted to "welcome spring time!" C&C is welcome or else I'll never get better & I'll always think I'm taking great shots when I'm not, lol.

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/93/l_0ba6e671566d4080ac28cb4e46bc67b8.jpg

http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/105/l_a8dee1f5b65246eebb6cf66195261017.jpg

Thank you so much for looking!

[HillHey]

Thank you! :) And believe it or not, she is even cuter in person! hahaha

[obnoxiousmom]

The first one is a little dark and doesnt really pop. I cant tell where the focus falls either. The second one she is a little greenish blue and again its dark. I think most of it would be fixable with some editing. Very cute pics and very cute kid :)

[HillHey]

Thank you so much! I noticed the bluish/green on the last pic. Is that because my white balance was off? It was very sunny out and I changed the wb to sunny. I guess I am going to have to get a grey card and see if it works better that way.
I am having trouble figuring out which f-stop & shutter speed my camera needs to be at in certain lighting, so I guess that's why it's so dark. I just keep changing it until I think the picture looks good in the viewfinder. I am currently reading Understanding Exposure (finally) so hopefully that will help me better understand. :)

[ka9546]

She's SO cute! My daughter has that same dress. =)

[obnoxiousmom]

Good book, I have that one as well. White balance still plagues me but Ive learned if I shoot in Raw, I can correct anything I didnt get right on camera. And yes white balance is why she is green looking but its still a correctable thing :)

Are you shooting in manual or Priority? For the last couple of months I shot in manual because I thought you needed to know that before you learn the rest but Ive found by shooting in the priority modes, allowing the camera to take away the guess work, you can look at your after EXIF data and learn from that what works and what doesnt.

Check out this site and print off the exposure charts at the bottom of the page. They work wonders when you are learning! Carry then with you so you can reference them before you begin shooting. Helps me a ton along with the purchase of my grey card :)
http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm#Introduction

Also, I took a jab at editing your pics because I need practice in that as well. I used CS3, , highlighted only the darker areas and bumped the curves up on them to brighten the picture without blowing the already lighter areas. Then I used auto color because I couldnt quite figure out what colors were really throwing it off when I tried to alter the colors manually. She kept getting either too yellow or too red for me.

She is still a little green to me in the second one though :( I tried
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f392/lifeuntome/niece1.jpg
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f392/lifeuntome/niece2.jpg

[HillHey]

Oh wow, thanks so much for that. :) I can definitely see the difference in the first one.
Right now I only have iphoto to do my editing with & it's not that great, imo.
I can't put photoshop on this computer or it'll crash, lol. It's a pretty old mac. Ugh. I need a new computer soon.

[HillHey]

And thanks SO MUCH for that website! It's going to help me out a lot!

[obnoxiousmom]

Awe yeah, I bought a whole new computer when I decided to start my photography journey. Its not the best but it does the job until I can get me a macbook like I really want. You are welcome. We cant learn if we dont have people here to help us. I would also recommend getting your moniter calibrated. It really changes the effect of the photos so that you see the true color. I bought Spyder2Express for $80 so that I could be sure my colors were right and there is a HUGE difference between calibrated and non calibrated editing