My Son

My son just learned to ride his bike and he is so proud (as are his parents). Wondering your thoughts on this picture?

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qWWP​ig

Hi Jessi. If this was my image, I would crop about 20% off the bottom (too much empty road space) and maybe a little from the top (experiment with that), and probably increase the contrast (or at least lower the blacks).

I think it's great just as it is. The foreground road sort of signifies where he's come from and how far he's gone. The background road kind of hints at the limitless possibilities.

I wouldn't touch it. Great memory.

Thanks to both of you for your feedback!

I vote for a crop at the bottom to get the boy more out of the center of the image. Well shot.

nice composition and subject. Conversions to B/W can be much more tricky than one might imagine. There are very few details in the rocks of the foreground and the trees might need a bit more detail. Messing around with the color sliders when converting will show you how Photoshop manages the conversion and will allow you to pick which colors give more contrast and detail to the final image.

The other thing is that this image has no true whites or blacks. I like my B/W punchy. The lack of blacks and whites can be seen in the histogram (grey curvy line in the graph) below. I applied this curve (dark line with dots on it) to the image to add contrast = darks darker and whites whiter. I'd probably clone out the white blob in the background, snow?

Thank you so much for helping me out. I did put a pretty heavy matte on this picture so maybe I should back off on that a little?

Good call on taking that snow out of the picture.

mamaof2 wrote in post #17500415
I did put a pretty heavy matte on this picture so maybe I should back off on that a little?

not sure what you mean by "heavy matte".

The picture is B&W and then I use the tone curve to add a matte look to the picture. Hope I am explaining this right

here is another photo where I added a matte look to it (wanted to give you another example)

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qRUM​7h

Yeah, how much black lift to do on a matte look is tricky. In my experience, less is more.

I will mess around with the matte when I get home tonight.

so the goal is to make a image viewed on a screen look like it was was printed on matte paper?

that is obviously one of those things that is open to interpretation. I don't think reducing contrast is really what printing on matte provides. I just happen to have a print i made from film sitting right here, i was going through my file cabinet full of the stuff the other day. The blacks are not quite full black, but the whites are white.

I think the biggest difference is viewing conditions. The only reason the blacks in my print are not full black it because i am viewing it under bright fluorescent of my office light. If i were viewing it in my living room they would certainly appear black.

So that said, reducing contrast is an artistic choice and i generally like my images punchy. Your mileage may vary.

I am going to play with it more tonight and I will repost!