Went to school...but the pics dont pop

agree
--
Peter Waldvogel

looks brown to me.
--
Peter Waldvogel

saga said:

Mark53 said:

saga said:

• never... never underexpose pix - it is better to darken it later

in PP stage than in camera

Click to expand...

It's way easier to correct later for underexposure than
overexposure. Most people have the contrary view to yours I
believe.

Click to expand...

Mark,

First of all i've never said overexpose pictures I said expose
correct.
Pay attention to what you read and don't draw false conclusions.

Click to expand...

I did read what you wrote, and it is still quoted above. You said "never...never underexpose pix - it is better to darken it later in PP stage than in camera".

To me "darken later in PP stage" implies an overexposed image that you are saying will require darkening to reach "correct" exposure. Of course "perfect" original exposure is desired, but in general, it IS much easier to correct for underexposure than overexposure. Your statement as written may lead someone to believe they should avoid underexposure at all costs and that they will be better off by overexposing if they question their exposure. This is simply not the case.

saga said:

Second of all I don't care what most people view is I do what gives
me the results I want.

Click to expand...

Nor do I, I only care that misinformation is avoided.

I'll try to remember! The Shadows/Highlights in PS is a great tool -- it raises the shadow level without affecting the brighter areas. Since her face was pretty much in shadow, as well as her general lighting, I jused shadows/highlights first. I believe I also made some slight adjusments to saturation (very slight) and color balance to remove some of the orange-ish cast. For the 2nd, I simply did a crop and slight rotation of the image -- I thought the tighter crop was also a nice image. For the 2nd one I think all I did was apply quite a bit of shadows adjustment. I was toying with the idea of changing the color of the lockers to provide more visual stimulus but couldn't quite figure what looked best -- I was playing around with a brightish pink color. Anyway, I do a lot of basic Photoshop work on my images, nothing real fancy, and I've learned my own technique for what usually works well with a minimum of work.

Didn't mean to confuse with the use of the word "2nd". In the first case, I meant the 2nd instance of the same 1st picture (!). In my cropped version there were no additional image adjustments other than crop and rotation.

Mark53 said:

saga said:

Mark53 said:

saga said:

• never... never underexpose pix - it is better to darken it later

in PP stage than in camera

Click to expand...

It's way easier to correct later for underexposure than
overexposure. Most people have the contrary view to yours I
believe.

Click to expand...

Mark,

First of all i've never said overexpose pictures I said expose
correct.
Pay attention to what you read and don't draw false conclusions.

Click to expand...

I did read what you wrote, and it is still quoted above. You said
"never...never underexpose pix - it is better to darken it later
in PP stage than in camera".

To me "darken later in PP stage" implies an overexposed image that
you are saying will require darkening to reach "correct" exposure.
Of course "perfect" original exposure is desired, but in general,
it IS much easier to correct for underexposure than overexposure.
Your statement as written may lead someone to believe they should
avoid underexposure at all costs and that they will be better off
by overexposing if they question their exposure. This is simply
not the case.

Click to expand...

Alright i see what you're saying here. I've stated it that way because the whole thing come down to "exposing to the right" thing. Some people have issue with exposing dark subject to the right because they don't want to make night look like a day. The only problem is that they obviously dont understand how digital camera works and why it is better to make the image look even brighter then it realy is (and I don't mean overexposed by that) and then if necessary darken it in PP.

Here is very good article explaining this issue.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

... and just for the record I don't thing that cliped highlights are always a bad thing.

Mark53 said:

Mark53 said:

Second of all I don't care what most people view is I do what gives
me the results I want.

Click to expand...

Nor do I, I only care that misinformation is avoided.

Click to expand...

I find that the first pic at least has enough in ti to work with;

Sadly I've gone too far with noise reduction, but as a first try I think you can get an idea of what I've tried. I could explain you step by step but basic idea behind workflow is get detail from shadows using Shadows/Highlights tool, and increase contrast (I read hear that in fashion fotography contrast is very very important). You will loose Highlights details, so get detail in Highlights using Shadows/Highlights tool,,, I like being conservative in each step recovering detail from shadows or highligths... Problem of this S/H tool is shadow. Remove shadow with your favourite tool (f.e. noise ninja)... Use auto-color in a layer and reduce opacity to your liking. Apply shdow mask when resizing.

I really would like to be a better photographer and not to use photoshop so often
regards

Here is a new try in PS2.



--

• Terje

wow. looks a littlewacky on my screen. tons of noise ,outlandish colors and her face and bosom have an unnatural color.

saga said:

... and just for the record I don't thing that cliped highlights
are always a bad thing.

Click to expand...

here here! I agree completely.

It's really amazing to me how often you will see people bash a photo because of blown highlights.

I'd rather blow out a few highlights than end up with drab and boring photo's.



I could have gone with a little faster shutter here. But, I like the results.
--
http://www.ianz28.smugmug.com

Love it. How did you do it.

Any suggestions on how to improve the lighting in the pics?

I like what you've done here. I guess I need to start playing with the highlights/shadows tool a lot more on some pics from a couple of years ago.

Mike

more detail in foreground: