Newbie Needs Quick Critique

[mytwogirls]

Hi,
I'm brand new to this forum and about 6 months into learning photography with my Digital Rebel. I just took these two today with my new 25-135 IS lens and they seem a little orangy. I used a grey card for the custom white balance (for the first time) so I'm looking to find out what I should try to do in photoshop to get the color a little better. Any additional comments are welcome. Thanks in advance!

100 ISO 1/40 f/5.0
http://pic8.picturetrail.com/VOL236/1831591/3530842/105009314.jpg

100 ISO 1/50 f/5.0
http://pic8.picturetrail.com/VOL236/1831591/3530842/105009311.jpg

[Radtech1]

Quick critique:

1: Out of focus.

2: Watch background and see 1.

Both: Cute kid.

[rent]

the orange/red cast could come from her red shirt. you can use curves and tone down the red a little bit in PS.

they look a bit soft to me. maybe a little USM would help too.

-alex

[Hellashot]

Kids can be fidgety and 1/40 and 1/50 is a little slow to freeze their movements even sitting still and smiling. Surprising you got the face with no shadows and not flash looking with such a bright background - good work.

If my lighting is consistent I'll set the WB to the specific type in the camera. If my lighting will vary I leave it at AWB. I shoot RAW using PSE 3 and it have an "auto" wb feature during conversion and 99.5% of the time the "as-shot" setting does best. My suggestion would be do shoot RAW and avoid custom WB - too much hassle for what you can do in post processing so much easier.

[mytwogirls]

Thank you all for your input. I really appreciate the constructive comments! There are just so many factors and I can't seem to remember all of them at the same time. I'll just keep trying!

[Mr. Clean]

Kids can be fidgety and 1/40 and 1/50 is a little slow to freeze their movements even sitting still and smiling. Surprising you got the face with no shadows and not flash looking with such a bright background - good work.

If my lighting is consistent I'll set the WB to the specific type in the camera. If my lighting will vary I leave it at AWB. I shoot RAW using PSE 3 and it have an "auto" wb feature during conversion and 99.5% of the time the "as-shot" setting does best. My suggestion would be do shoot RAW and avoid custom WB - too much hassle for what you can do in post processing so much easier.

This is solid stuff here!
Also, just in case you might not have heard this anywhere. Keep your shutter speed at least (preferable greater) to your focal length, and even so I wouldn't shoot anything handheld less than 1/60 and expect sharpness.
Sure they might look a little soft but I wouldn't change either picture honestly.

[MTalley]

I took the second picture, used "Curves" in PS CS, selected the whitest area towards the right of the picture as the white point and the darkest part of the left eye as the black. Did some USM at 150, 0.5, 0 (the last settings I had used for something else) and came up with the attached.

That covers the post-processing type of work. As for avoiding the color cast up front, I'd go with the other suggestion about shooting RAW with AWB set and adjusting it, if needed, using your favorite RAW conversion tool (I use RawShooter Essentials, myself).

[mytwogirls]

I took the second picture, used "Curves" in PS CS, selected the whitest area towards the right of the picture as the white point and the darkest part of the left eye as the black. Did some USM at 150, 0.5, 0 (the last settings I had used for something else) and came up with the attached.

That covers the post-processing type of work. As for avoiding the color cast up front, I'd go with the other suggestion about shooting RAW with AWB set and adjusting it, if needed, using your favorite RAW conversion tool (I use RawShooter Essentials, myself).

Thank you! I like the way that looks much better. I have PSE 3 so some of what you did I can't replicate using the same actions but I might be able to figure it out. I haven't tried shooting in RAW yet but I keep meaning to. I guess I was just so excited to get this new lens that I forgot about everything else! I appreciate all of the comments because now I know what to try and work on next time.

[jimsolt]

Thank you! I like the way that looks much better. I have PSE 3 so some of what you did I can't replicate using the same actions but I might be able to figure it out. I haven't tried shooting in RAW yet but I keep meaning to. I guess I was just so excited to get this new lens that I forgot about everything else! I appreciate all of the comments because now I know what to try and work on next time.

Actually with PSE 3 you CAN duplicate what was done. Curves are not native to PSE, but you can download a FREE plugin that contains curves from several sources. One I know of is Grants Tools. I have used it and while like many things in Elements, it doesn't quite come up to all the bells and whistles of the full blown Photoshops, it will work quite well for many things.

In Adobe forums there is an Elements forum where you can find what's available and recommended by long time users.

Jim

[goatee]

In fact - just to make it easy for you - check out http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/photoshop-elements-curves.html
to get the curves (and some other goodies) add-in for Elements.

[johneric8]

Cute girl, not too bad. I think you need to work on your white balance editing with these pics. They look very yellow to me. If that is the look you are going for then that is fine. It looks like to me that you exposed for her face which blew out the background. that is fine, but, Maybe next time try using a fill flash for her face in this situation. Or, what I would do is expose for the background so it's not blown out then use a good flash with a soft box like the lumiquest on it for fill light on her face. This way her eyes would really pop! I'm not expert, just an opinion thats all.