Self Portrait

[CWILL]

50D - 50mm canon f/1.4 - Flash w/ transparent umbrella
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/3711/cwilawes.jpg
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/355/portrait4.jpg

[gonzogolf]

Nice enough self portrait. But your watermark is over the top, literally. Its so distracting that it makes it difficult to fairly evaluate your shot. Are you worried someone is going to steal your self portrait and use it somehoW?

[CWILL]

Hahahaha! no i just added it because i felt it looked badass. I guess i was wrong! haha :) thanks for the CnC

[gonzogolf]

Hahahaha! no i just added it because i felt it looked badass. I guess i was wrong! haha :) thanks for the CnC


Smaller and on the bottom it might work a bit better.

[CWILL]

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/281/selfportn.jpg


Better? :]

[gonzogolf]

Not to seem like a schmuck but I'm not a big fan of the wide black borders either, especially for critique. But to the photo, you nailed the exposure and you have a nice low key sort of look going on.

[CWILL]

hah! I'm taking note's so that next time, I nail your specifications! :] thanks again for the critique.

[gonzogolf]

hah! I'm taking note's so that next time, I nail your specifications! :] thanks again for the critique.

It may just be me, but a lot of people who post on here try to artificially jazz up their photos with some bit of framing, a logo, or worse yet a tilt. It's as if they aren't confident in their photo unadorned. I get why people want to protect certain images from being stolen and used without their permission and thus the watermark but for most shots thats not an issue either.

[CWILL]

I actually did it because the white from this forum changes what the colors of the photo... All editing was done in CS, and on a black background, thus for- the photo should be viewed with black surronding it. or i should edit with a white background... or maybe i am not confident. :)

[CWILL]

Here is a second attempt
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/355/portrait4.jpg

[WilsonC]

Looks good CWILL.

I would use the healing brush to remove 3 little clasp highlights on the collar, like we already talked about. I like this 3rd attempt the best. You've made the lighting more dramatic by darkening the background, and the watermark was pretty bold. But, if you scaled it down a bit and put it in a lower corner I think it would look really good. You gave the image more "room to breathe" by giving it a looser crop...looks better IMO.

Playing with the new lighting (to us) is a lot of fun!

[gonzogolf]

I actually did it because the white from this forum changes what the colors of the photo... All editing was done in CS, and on a black background, thus for- the photo should be viewed with black surronding it. or i should edit with a white background... or maybe i am not confident. :)

The white doesnt change the photo, only how you perceive it. Its one of those optical illusions. I actually like it better against the white background because on the black there was too much darkness surrounding the photo that made me feel like the image was too dark, although a careful look revealed it wasnt.