XMas Card Shot from vaca in Korea, lots of photoshopping, need some help!

Hello,

My family just visited my sister in Korea and we have a tradition of taking XMas Card photos on family vacations. I had just purchased my Rebel XTi w/ Sigma lens and this was one of the first shots with it actually.

The original shot had tons of lines going through the air that I photoshopped out with this result.

Nice work removing all the cabling. That must have taken a while.

As for the focus -- I'm guessing the camera was at least 10 feet away from your faces. With your camera, at 18mm and f/11, everything from about 3.5 feet from the camera to infinity is going to be in focus. Even if the camera was 8 feet from your faces, you should still find that you're in focus. Your shutter speed was fast enough that motion blur isn't going to be an issue either, so any perceived lack of focus is going to be a factor of the lens.

Did you do much sharpening of the image in PS?

is this any good. Very quick edit, could do with a bit more time spending on it. Sharpened using faststone. sky taken from on of my pics.
Malc

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ibdb, thanks for your info there! now, how did you know what my settings were?! I'm a total new guy, so...

I don't believe I sharpened at all, just cropped and used the clone tool a lot!

sycamorebirds, nice job there, although the edges of the 'grandfather statue' to look a bit photoshopped. Also, is the sky in the original that unappealing that I should consider spicing it up or even swapping out for a different sky shot, like you've done here?

Any other comments/suggestions for my first photo project?!

Thanks

ErikHoppy wrote in post #6088996
ibdb, thanks for your info there! now, how did you know what my settings were?! I'm a total new guy, so...

I don't believe I sharpened at all, just cropped and used the clone tool a lot!

I use an EXIF viewer called Opanda. It allows me to see the settings that were used when the picture was taken (as long as the information is still there to view -- some image editors can remove the information).

As for sharpening, what software are you using for editing? In Photoshop CS3, the menu options are "Filter, Sharpen" and then there are a variety of sharpening actions you can take from there. If you're using Elements, the options are going to be similar. As to what settings to use when you sharpen, there are almost as many answers to that as there are photographers. If you do a search of the forum for sharpening settings, you'll get some recommendations for some different ones to try.

That looks like Jeju-do. It's a really beautiful island. I was just there last month. Nice pic too.

Gotchya, very cool that anyone can see the data information!

I'm using Photoshop CS(1). I'll give it a shot with the sharpening, but any other things that can be improved? How's the crop? How are the colors?

gnats50 wrote in post #6089767
That looks like Jeju-do. It's a really beautiful island. I was just there last month. Nice pic too.

It's Jeju Island, bingo! It's actually just outside the World Cup Stadium.

in photoshop, smarthsharpen is your friend.

I am not a PP savant, but kudos to what sycamore did -- whatever he advises looks like good stuff.

When you took the shot, did you focus manually before you shot, or did you set the timer and leave the camera to focus? If you used the autofocus, did you leave the viewfinder uncovered?