Hello everyone,
I have enjoyed looking at the pictures posted here and thought I would share some that I taken. These are some of my favorites, would welcome constructive criticism.
I am going to attach one picture to this post and reply to my post with two more, I'm not sure if this the best way to post pictures here, as I see other post with multiple pictures attached, any help would be apperciated.
Thanks,
Louis
1 - nice 2/3 down horizon, nice colors, nice depth. I am not sure that the man works in this picture - perhaps if you were lower down and behind him with him a bit bigger. The banch on right also either needs to be further in or out. You have the right idea - without some foreground interest this picture is too plain but the foreground interest needs to complement.
2 - very nice - is the best of the 3 posts for me. Silhouets are great and the plane is great showing busyness in front of the plane. It would be better if the silhouets did not overlap as much but that is tough. Good exposure, depth and compostion.
3 - nice colors, nice bokeh, good focus, good exposure but for me the butterfly needs to be much bigger in the frame.
Hello Scott,
I certainly apperciate your thoughtful and generous comments. I am looking at what I posted to see how I could, in practice, implement some improvements based on your critique.
Number 1 is the one I worried the most about, I could easily see why someone would not like it at all. I believe that is the full frame of the shot showing, I am going to look at recomposing the picture.
I had considered exactly your thoughts about the overlapping of the silhouettes in picture 2, but I still wanted to post the picture.
Picture 3 is the full frame, I really liked the bokeh, I couldn't bring myself to crop it, but I know you are correct, I should have cropped the shot.
That was about as close as I could get, I was using my 24-105 lens, if I had my Macro lens at the time, I would have been closer to the subject and I would not had to worry about cropping the nice bokeh.
Many thanks,
Louis
A few suggestions for number three you might want to try, assuming you have PS:
0. Copy the image and edit the copy.
1. In a PS adjustment levels layer, trim the right toe of the levels, perhaps to something like 210-220.
2. In a PS curves adjustment layer, adjust the middle third of the curve to make it *slightly* steeper to add a little visual snap. (Skip this if my suggestion for this step is confusing.)
3. In a color balance adjustment layer reduce the blue slightly, perhaps about -10.
4. In a hue and saturation adjustment layer bump the saturation by between +5 and +10.
5. Flatten the layers.
6. Apply the unsharp mask (filters), try an amount between 80 and 100%, a radius between 1.2 and 1.6, and perhaps a threshold between 10 and 15.
7. Crop about 1/6th off the left side of the image and between 1/10th and 1/8th off the top. You might crop more later, but it would be an interesting first cut. Maybe a bit off the right later, too.
While you're adjusting things in Photoshop, you might try using the "Filter > Distort > Lens Correction..." menu on the second image to straighten up the window panes. I think the nice, strong geometrical motif in the image would look a lot better if it wasn't slightly off-kilter (this is just a preference of mine, perspective/tilt should either be obviously tilted or completely straight, not partway between).
We learn by doing. I think you did it very well. The final Butterfly in much better than the original. The sky color on the revised first image is more interesting, too. The airport image is improved as well. One big reason I enjoy learning PS is I don't have to wait long for the visual rewards.
