I think they are very good shots but they all have one serious flaw -- there is way too much JPEG compression loss! The best example of it is in front of the face on the last player. The image is very distorted. What settings did you use? Are these crops of much broader photos? Did you do some processing after uploading the photos?
I think you're off to a pretty good start. You've got good separation from the bg.
You've got good expressions on the faces. But I don't see a ball in any of the frames. For maximum impact you should go for the ball, the face and the action coming towards the camera in a nice, tight crop.
Also, you've got something going on with your sharpening. I see a lot of oversharpening artifacts on the edges.
Nice color and compos and 2 & 3 are cropped well. All in all a good first outing.
Thanks for the time guys. These are cropped, but not much. I goofed something up when I resized and got them ready for the web. I thought they looked completely different than the originals also. I'm real new at this digital stuff. What do you do to your photos to post them? And how do you post more than one at a time?
These photos look like camera shake from too slow of a shutter speed, but everyone else may have pointed out part of the problem. Are you resizing the photos before you do any post processing? That is how I do it. Resize, then post process, and save sharpening for last. If you are applying sharpening, then resizing and sharpening again, it will throw everything outa whack.
I’ll agree, that having the ball in the photo can really help to make a photo.
I redid the last one using Adam's sharpening technique. Reposting it just to get a look at it. Any better? Thanks for the tips guys, keep em' coming. I've learned a ton today!
Looks a lot better. No distortion or artifacts. That method I sent you is called lab color sharpening using the lightness channel. You're on your way to clearer, sharper images. Nice job.
Looks a lot better. Doesn’t hurt the eyes now. It’s tough to get good detail when the players face is in the shade, as you can see by looking at my recent baseball photos. Now, to just get the ball in the photo.
Thanks for shortening the film-to-digital journey a few hundred miles. You rock!