I like this, - does convey a dark, maybe sinister mood, - or boredom perhaps.

Im not certain if the person was smoking, or you added it later, - but IMO it could work even without the smoke, though it does add a dimension to it. Would prefer to see more, or more distinct smoke rather than a faint cloud.

I would also crop some off the right just to get the figure off centre, and in my mod Ive dodged the wall on the right, and his face a tad, while adding a little space to the left and top.


Hope this helps,

Regards


Willie

Its a nice shot, - however it can be a great shot with a curves adjustment to brighten (its a tad underexposed), and cropping to place the birds eye on a third, - as in the mod.


Hope this is helpful,

Regards


Willie

With a candid like this, - you get what you see, and you dont have direct control over the light. You can have some control over light in the sense that you can choose a time of day, or circumstances that are more favourable.

As already mentioned, the contrast and harsh light arent flattering, - but you can improve the image somewhat with lowering contrast, lightening shadows, using some blurring on the eyes and skin, removing some lines with a healing brush.

Ive done all of the above in a mod, including cropping a little off the left.



Regards



Willie

This is a good shot Beckas, - dont quite know how you manage these self portraits so they turn out so well focused.

I think the creases and colour difference in the bottom of the background let it down a little. It benefits greatly from a different crop, adding much more space to the right and top.

Ive done this is a mod, and also did some ironing, - hope you like the mod and it gives you some ideas.


Regards


Willie

The first thing I notice about this shot Alex is that it has a very strong blue cast. If you dont see this on your monitor, then its needs to be calibrated. You can do a quick calibration with the Adobe Gamma programme in Control Panel on a PC if you have any version of Photoshop installed.

Ive corrected the cast in my mod1, recovered shadow detail, and sharpened a little. Ive also removed a little barrel distortion from the wide lens, and straightened it a little (It may have been straight, but appeared a little off with the curve of the horizon).

The composition can look better if you dont put the horizon in the middle of the frame. You can place it on the lower or upper third of the frame depending on whether you want to accentuate the sky or the rocks. Ive loaded mod2 where I have cloned in some fake rocks at the bottom to give a sense of the horizon paced on the upper third of the frame.

Hope this helps


Regards


Willie

Hi Aandy,

This I think is a situation where perfect symmetry and a central alignmet of the subject all worjk together to make an image that appears to be unnatural, - i.e. its not a real landscape scene, - its a digital construction.

Its mechanical, lots of straight lines, exaggerated colours, with nothing to lead the eye into the image, and no real focal point.

So thats the bad part, - the good part is that it can be cropped so the edge of the water is on a third, in Mod2, so it look a little less mechanical, (mod1 is colour balanced and less saturated) - or it makes a terrific basis for an abstract. In mod 3, it can look like a stylized wine glass for example.

Hope this is helpful,


Regards


Willie

Really nice Conrad.

I did a mod, and heres the scoop:

Crop some from the top, add space to the left.

Curves to set black and white points.

Reduced red, - colour balance method.

Used shadow tool to bring out eye, and some hair detail.

Softened everything except eyes, mouth, hair.

Added small amount of diffuse glow.



Regards


Willie

Not the run of the mill shot Neil, - interesting to see a glider from this point of view.

Its a little dull, and can benefit quite a bit from a simple curves or levels adjustment. Cropping the height may help too, as it would fit an 8X10 format with space removed top and bottom.

Ive loaded 2 mods with these changes, - the second one has a warming filter applied.

Hope this is useful,

Regards


Willie

I did it with a neat tool on Photoshop CS4 colled content aware scaling, - but without this what I would do is use a marquee tool to select a rectangle on the left to include the image top to bottom, and over to just right of the boats, then copy, paste, and using the move tool move the selected area to the right. Then crop off the unwanted part on the left. Much better than cloning, and works well with something like this.


W

Checked out the original in your pf, - you did quite a lot of work to get a good image from it.

Loaded a mod of your original, used screen mode to extract detail, the a velvia filter to add some warmth.


Regards


W

Hi Dennis,

I love the pose, the model, the eye contact, but I dont like what the effects have done to the image. Its noisy, soft, and oversaturated imho.

I would also crop quite a bit from the bottom, - her "assets" are distracting from a beautiful face and expression.

Ive loaded a couple of mods for your review, and I hope you like them.


Regards


Willie

You did everything perfectly Stu. Theres one thing you need to make sure of that you can check, - did you set the colour sampler sample size for 3x3 average, or a point sample?

Its important NOT to use point sample. When I did threshold I found the black as you did, and the whitest in the stripes, - BUT the stripes were way too narrow to provide a 3X3 sample size, so I used the next largest white are by dragging the slider in a littlem and that was the cloud on the book. When you are selecting the white point, hover the sampler over the white you intend to select and take a look at the 'info' palette, - it should indicate 255,255,255, - if not, then though it looks white, you will sample something thats not entirely white. Same for black at 0,0,0.

If the image you worked on was larger than the one uploaded, you may well have identified white prperly with the stripe, and it would have supported a 3X3 sample.

Assuming you did all this correctly, then I would use colour balance to balance red towards cyan anyway, as I have done. I do this because even with a colour correct shot, I fell my Canon 5D over saturates red especially in skin, and your cam might do the same. By the way, - take the shot in RAW, not jpeg if you can, then you dont have to correct the jpeg settings the camera will apply.

Theres an excellent book on digital colour called SKIN you should try to get you hands on, - its fantastic.

Youre on the right track, - keep it up,


Hope this is useful,


Regards


Willie

Loaded a mod also, - similar to CBs mod. Its a very well composed shot by the way, perfect placement of the baby, and the pose is attractive.

I have applied the threshold technique to it, and also using the colour balance adjustment, I reduced the red bias, moving the slider towards cyan, to -40! The Canon DSLR imo can bias the image way too much towards red, especially noticeable in skin tones.
Sharpened also, - quite a bit, - remember to do this after you re size the image!


Regards


Willie

To "fix" colours using curves, - you first need to establish where the black and white areas in the photo start, this is so you know where to "click" the black and white droppers, - otherwise youre guessing.

You do this by using a "threshold" adjustment, which allows you, using a slider, to clewarlt identify where black begins, and where white begins. These area can be marked with the colour sampler tool, and they will leave a nice small target on the image to show where to click the curves droppers. When youve done that, you can clear the targets from the image. Give it a trey, - sounds complex but its quite easy, and a great way to neutralize the colour tone in the image.

Regards


Willie

This is a shot that does not appear to have a focal point, - and as CB stated above, this, it works against it. Is it about the Bank, the bank building, a street scene?

Might have been a opportunity to get closer or zoom in to some of the street activity, - or focus on a feature of the building.

There is quite a bit of barrel distortion also, which with so many lines and geometric shapes can make it look off balance. Ive removed the distortion in the mod. Using a wide angle lens can cause barrel distortion, where the middle of the image appears to expand outwards, - if you view the image on a grid it becomes obvious. If you use Photoshop CS2 and up, theres a tool under filter>distort>lens correction that allows you to remove it.


Regards


Willie

Terrific image, and a chilling commentary, - thanks for sharing such a wonderful story. You captured the essence of this lady, - you can almost read your words in her face.

Ive loaded a couple of mods, - mainly to crop her off centre, put more focus on those eyes by cropping the top down a little, and tone down reflections.


Regards



Willie

How does this look Andy?

Heres what I did:

Use the patch tool; select large chunks of the background where there are wrinkles, drag the selected area to a part with no wrinkles, and release. Do this until most of the wrinkles are gone. The patch tool has to be set up for "source" on the option bar, top of the screen, - its the default, s it may work first time.

For any areas that are still a little wrinkled that you can get done with the patch tool, - heres a trick:

Use the colour dropper to select the colour of the area you want to fix; then paint it at 100% opacity and 20% flow; keep sampling the colour of each area and painting to make it look real.

Then just clean up the dirty bottom area with the spot healing brush.

Hope this is what you wanted, - if not, just let me know.


Regards


W

Welcome to EPZ.

A little off vertical, - loaded a mod with a curves adjustment, lifted shadows, sharpened and straightened.

There seems to be a slight colour cast also, - the green of the grass for example looks off. Its worth extracting some detail from the headstones, - theyre a nice point of interest in the shot.

Hope this is helpful,



Regards


W

Nice shot, composed nicely off centre. Loaded 2 mods, - brightened both, sharpened, and cloned out the background posts?



Regards


Willie

Well worth risking stopping on the highway for this, - a very nice shot, nicely composed against a dull winter sky.

I have loaded a mod along with the other good mods, and to make the most of this, as youve asked, you first need to know what needs to be improved.

Its underexposed by about one stop, which essentially is all that you need to work on. When shooting snow/sky scenes the camera will tend to underexpose, so you would need to compensate in camera by +1. The effect that Lynne and I have achieved with curves and levels adjustments basically add one stop of exposure.

Print it, put it in a frame and enjoy a nice image.

Hope this helps,


Regards


Willie