What improvments can be done

Hello everyone
i am a beginer in photography, but really enjoy it. i have a rebel with a kit lens, holding off on buying lenses untill i know enough to make a good judgment on what i want. anyways i took a few pictures at a friends wedding that i really liked. these pic where shot with a nikon D70 with an 85 prime. this is my favourite shot. i think its one of my all time favourite shot taken by myself.

but to learn i need critisism. what is wrong with his pic, how can it be improved.

i am somewhat a believer in as little post processing as possible, spend more time behnd the camera, and less behind the computer, but there is only so much you can do without PP.

what can i do to improve this from a PP point of view.

all comments are welcome.

thank you

Welcome to POTN. I think you started great with this first image capturing nice color and a great moment.
However I think there are a few things that are distracting in the image, the overhang, the swim ladder and the ramp in the background.

Glad to have you aboard silverturtle. I have to the say the biggest problem with this shot is it came out of a Nikon!

The subjects are wonderful, however the rule of thirds would be something to keep in mind when shooting. The alternative...cropping the image after the fact to accomplish the task. Also, the building on the left and the bright silver swim ladder is a bit distracting. If you had moved to the left or right and zoomed in some you might have eliminated them. Some good PP could be done...but like you mention, you could have got the shot w/o that.

All in all a good image! With this image you could do some PP - crop and maybe just have to clone out one side of the silver swim ladder.

i like it fine and i think in this situation the its ok without applying the rule of thirds....

Vertical crop would take out the floating dock, the structure on the left and maybe the swim ladder if you moved around.

If you enabled editing people could show you what they have in mind.

^ I agree with Joe.

How do i enable Editing

Click on User CP, Edit Profile, Additional information.

joedlh wrote in post #5798152
Click on User CP, Edit Profile, Additional information.

done

Here is a quick edit....just an idea. There are other ways the composition could be laid out.

Whoops, forgot the image.

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Ah, the crop makes it better.

i hope im not asking too much, but what exactly did you do to the color/sharpnes, e.t.c. I thought my original was crisp, but yours looks much better

The edit has a fairly complex but highly accurate clone. The clone looks as if it was done in conjunction with the 'Vanishing Point' filter. Excellent job. Well done.

I think that applying the rule of thirds just for the sake of rule of thirds is not always the best choice of comp. It's often futile to try to outcrop a nice ROT composition after the image has been captured. There are some genres of portraiture that need the journalistic/documenta​tion approach more than the rule of thirds. IMHO, this is one of those portraits. Besides, 90 % of wedding clientell will not be photographers, anyway. Some will even complain if the subject isn't perfectly centered.

I admit that wedding pics are more professional when the image documents the event while achieving a rule of some sort of composition. To crop in order to fit this image into a rule of thirds composition might not be a good idea if it lessons documentation from the event. For instance, 50 years from now grandchildren will realize that this shot was taken on the dock of the boathouse or the deck of a restaurant on the water front.

Ok, for the critique. My main concern is that the image is soft....too soft to fit into a wedding portfolio.

silverturtle wrote in post #5799853
Ah, the crop makes it better.

i hope im not asking too much, but what exactly did you do to the color/sharpnes, e.t.c. I thought my original was crisp, but yours looks much better

midnitejam, I agree about the rule of thirds but it made it easier (and faster) for me to adjust the image

I actually used the clone tool for everything - probably would have been better had I used the vanishing point. But after cropping and cloning out the swim ladder I bumped up the exposure using CS3 ever so slightly - image > adjustments > exposure. The only other thing I did was a very small "smart sharpen" filter adjustment.

Here is a little edit, hope you don't mind

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