Pictures

[Shutterman]

These are just some older pictures that I have, any comments would be really appreciated!

[Rodders]

Very nice photos, love the lightning, fireworks and the gate and pretty much all of them.

[Shutterman]

Very nice photos, love the lightning, fireworks and the gate and pretty much all of them.

Thanks Rodders! The one with the lightning was definitely the hardest one to get, and it really didn't come out that well. I need to do some PP on it and reduce the noise and straighten it up, but i'm not quite that good with it yet. Thanks for the input though, Charleston is a great place to shoot!

[Wirefox]

There are lot of images to take in here (nearly as bad as my posts). However there a couple of generic observations;

I like the idea of number No1. But If you are using a DSLR i would have more impact at a wider aperture to give a shallower DoF

The Disney castle is also a good image but that brings me to my next general comment; straightening of horizontals/verticals. It is OK on some of the images but others are out of kilter.

The close cropping may be intentional but it does not do some of your images justice.

Last whinge I promise I assume you do some PP (the BW/colour image) and this is just a personal preference but I would recommend having a play with the levels and curves on some of these images to give a little more vibrance and a wee touch of sharpening would help.

Hope I don't sound too negative with these comments

Steve

[Shutterman]

There are lot of images to take in here (nearly as bad as my posts). However there a couple of generic observations;

I like the idea of number No1. But If you are using a DSLR i would have more impact at a wider aperture to give a shallower DoF

The Disney castle is also a good image but that brings me to my next general comment; straightening of horizontals/verticals. It is OK on some of the images but others are out of kilter.

The close cropping may be intentional but it does not do some of your images justice.

Last whinge I promise I assume you do some PP (the BW/colour image) and this is just a personal preference but I would recommend having a play with the levels and curves on some of these images to give a little more vibrance and a wee touch of sharpening would help.

Hope I don't sound too negative with these comments

Steve

Steve,

You don't sound negative at all. I appreciate the comments, and yes, I know there's a lot to take in I do PP, but the first picture (unfortunately) was taken with my old Canon Powershot and the colors were done in camera. I just thought it was a cool picture, but I would definitely like to try some shots like this with my dSLR. The shallower DoF would definitely help add a lot to the photo too.

The cropping was done when I first began shooting, and I really don't remember why I did it. Probably because there were some distracting things in the photos that I didn't know how to handle, so I just cropped the photo for simplicity.

Thirdly, the horizontal balance is off in quite a few of my photos. That's something that I can fix though, with just a little rotation. I really didn't notice the Disney picture was off until you mentioned it, but i'm glad you did and I will definitely take a more careful eye with that issue. Thanks for the input, and I won't have so many on a post next time

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Trey,

All credit for taking more care in future at shooting time, I am all for that.

However, "reading between the lines" I get the idea that you have no chance of going back to the original files and starting over with these - if that's because you are saving the edited version with the same filename as the original, I would strongly suggest you do not continue to do that, because occasionally we all mess up big time and if you do it with an important shot

If on the other hand, it is just because you don't want to revisit old work, that's fine too.
Although as your PP skills increase (straightening, cropping, etc.) you may want to go back and have a second attempt with the really good captures.

In all the above shots, I can see what made you want to take them, but as Steve suggests, several could do with some basic PP which will make them far more presentable for only a few seconds work.

Hope that helps,

[Shutterman]

Dave,

Actually, I saved the edited copy differently than my original, but my old computer crashed and burned and I lost a lot of files, including the original copies of some of these. You could understand how upset I was about that. I also need to get a book that teaches me how to PP better, that's an area where i'll have to make some definitive improvements. Any book suggestions? Or should I just try playing with them in Adobe PS Elements?

[Dave Humphries]

Trey,

I would most definitely recommend the Scott Kelby Photoshop Elements book for the appropriate version number Elements you have. They are very well indexed and make it easy to find how to do things when you're stuck for ideas.

Sorry to hear about the computer, btw.

Cheers,

[Shutterman]

Dave,

Thanks. I'll definitely go pick up the book. And the computer crashing was definitely a bummer. I lost a lot (and I mean a lot, about 5 years worth) of material. It's my fault though, seeing as I didn't back up externally. I backed up to a reserve hard drive, according the OEM standards, and nothing could be recovered. You live, you learn. And for me, that was a BIG lesson on backing up.

Trey