I like the simplicity of this image. For me the composition is spot on. The sky and clouds are interesting and fairly dramatic.
I've done two mod where I have darkened the high lights which make the sky a bit more dramatic and sharpened a little which improves the contrast of the tree against the sky. On my second mod I cloned out the bush at the left hand side.
I would have used a smaller aperture and slower speed although everything looks in the same focus. Generally the best part of a lens is around f5.6 to f11.
regards
Ian

Interesting and eye catching image. There is a lot of stuff to look at from the tattoo, her hair,eyes and lips plus the dress and decorations.
I don't understand your comment about keeping things simple!
If the intention is to show off the hat and necklace I'm not sure you have succeeded as there are just so many other things to look at. The necklace fades in the lace background.
Photographically it is mostly good, lovely skin tones and good and sharp around her eyes and face. Maybe a little less directional light or more reflected as the shadow from her nose is quite strong and her left eye a little dark. I don't mind the white reflections on her blue top as it shows off the shiny material.
Good picture but for me does not show off necklace at all and not really the hat.
There are my views, hope your get more comments,
regards
Ian

A lovely capture from Keukenhof. So many beautiful flowers but I found it difficult to photograph them on my visits.
The angle of approach you used can work very well. Find a wide open example and fill the frame symmetrically so the whole image is of the inside of the petals (crop square later). There beautiful details in the stamen and the bee attracting colouring around them. With your flower you could include the red fringes through to central area.
The real beauty of the tulip is in the famous tulip shape. Find an isolated flower sticking up, focus on that and have a background of out of focus flowers.
http://www.ephotozine.com/user/iancrowson-124962/gallery/photo/tulip-challenge--...
You have some very nice images from Keukenhof in your PF
regards
Ian

Nice capture. Some good advice above.
At f8 with the lens you used and your camera the depth of field (in focus front to back) at 600mm distance would be about 10mm,
at half that distance much less. I have the same lens and use it at f16 or f22 for such shots.
Have a look at this dof calculator.......
http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
As Paul says it is perfectly acceptable to have just one area of the flower in sharp focus, usually the stamens.
Have a look at this snap of mine...
http://www.ephotozine.com/user/iancrowson-124962/gallery/photo/wee-white-3364621...
only the centre. is sharp
Full face or flat on, as your image, is often not the most flattering or artistic angle to present a flower although easier to get all in focus.
To stay with a low ISO and small aperture plus the magnification of a macro lens you must use a tripod and shield the flower from any breeze.
Have a look at the technique of focus stacking which involve multiple images of different areas of the flower being combined with software.
Happy shooting
Ian

Welcome to the ePhotozine critique gallery.
I like this photo, it works well as a mother and daughter moment. There is obvious interaction between the two. I've done a mod (click on modifications above) where I have cropped from the bottom to bring more attention to the main area.
I prefer the colour version, I personally don't think the image gains much from the BW conversion. The image seems to me to be about a pretty mother and girl so colour emphasise this.
Your camera setting look suitable and the image sharp. Colours are good although the green area behind their face is a bit distracting.
These are my views, I hope you get some more useful comments,
regards
Ian

Good picture of pretty woman. Nice one.
The blue tint is obvious, don't know at what stage it appeared. I used the white eye dropper in levels on the eyes whites and those mauve lines on the background went too.
I've done a crop to 10x8 leaving her eyes central which seems to work.
Reduced red sat as skin is rather red .
Brought out a bit more detail in dark area of hair.
Skin smoothing has it's place especially for pics in Vouge or such mags.
Main point for improvements in future work would be to concentrate on lighting and model's make up, she looks a bit bright and shiny on the left side of her face.. Probably more diffused lighting.
These are my views. Hope you get some input/advice from expert portrait people,
regards
Ian

I really like this image. Memories for me of many visits to Athens and Greece. Georges Meis photographed lots of these images in his earlier days.
I've done a mod based on your original as I don't like only part of the door showing. Cropped and removed lamp. Quality not so good as I had to do a screen grad and convert to jpeg again. Black frame is to make image size large enough for site upload. Actually I like the black frame which Georges Meis used for his poster prints, set off the colours.
These are my views and take on the image, hope you get some more suggestions and comments,
regards
Ian

Hi Erik
I quite like this, the composition and idea is really good. Like Nathan I feel it is a bit over cooked. The daffodils are too indistinct for me, yellow blobs rather than swaying heads. They have also ended up as a very attention drawing lighter area of the total image. Maybe you could show us a version without the layer which had more shadows area maybe not so bright especially the green areas.
I like Nathan's mod too. It solves the differences in the image between the upper and lowers parts too. To me your image as presented is sort of half arty and half record photography.
These are my views there will be others who have more appreciation for this type of picture,
regards
Ian

Interesting image, your processing looks good to me.
The image works well within the context of your presentation, as part of a series on the Ganges and your adventure. On it's own it says less.
I guess the two men are on a boat, or maybe on the river bank. i can't tell. lLeaving me with the words on the wall which are thought provoking in their own right and are really the main message although the men could be considered fortunates.
So as an image it is interesting and thought provoking, therefore another good one.
I'm enjoying you pictures of India, keep them coming,
regards
Ian

Nice one, much better than the last posted in the critique gallery (see my comments).
Sharper all over will still a nice dark out of focus background.
Composition is better.
Better camera angle gives a more attractive aspect of the flower.
If anything it is framed a bit too tightly, bit more space needed below. Slight crop to right hand side would also be good. This would put more space/background in front of flower than behind, which usually looks best.
Colour looks ok, better than last one. I see you set cloudy white balance. What was lighting? There maybe is a slight greenish tint. Probably ok especially as viewer does not know real colour of orchid which vary a lot in colours. Shooting in RAW would allow you to adjust the colour balance in processing..
Lighting is ok but again just a touch hard with shadows starting to intrude. A reflector would help with the fairy directional lighting used.
Because you used a tripod I would have used a lower ISO, say ISO200 (base ISO of your nikon model???) and 1/10th sec using cable release or self timer.
A shall try a mod, click on modifications above,
regards
Ian

You are getting there, a good image.
A few good points above about focusing.
One approach with a close up like this would be to select manual focus and live view and use the live view magnify feature to zoom in on the eye and tweak focus manually.
I would stay with a smallish aperture to ensure full depth of field (focus back to front on subject) which is important with this type of image.
You used a pretty good lens. I personally would use your lens at F20 without too much concern about diffraction if I needed a small aperture. It is more of a problem with cheap kit lens.
To ensure the sharpest image I would focus on eye and take a series of exposures at say f22, f18, f16, f11 and f8 with camera set on apreture priority setting and examine later for full depth of field. I'm assuming the creature will stay still.
You will have a depth of view preview button on your camera, this stops the lens down to the set aperture to show what's in focus. You may need to use a brighter light whilst you do this to be able to see details. There are depth of field calculators (google it) which give you an idea. Difficult to tell looking at your images as we have no idea of size and distance.
Like Paul says a dedicated macro (when you buy one!) such as the nikon 105mm f2.8 I use will give very sharp images at f22 and smaller
When viewing your image the main point that occurs to me is the composition. The geko? creature slopes down whilst the reflection is horizontal. I feel it would be better to see both bodies coming in from the left with background above. This may not be possible due to the mirror effect.
regards
Ian

An interesting image showing architectural details. I personally don't mind the view point or the leaning back effect. This is the sort of image often seen in guide books to illustrate an interesting building.
A little sky above the very top structure would look better.
The picture is a little dark in some parts hiding details. This is likely to be caused by slight under exposure due to the camera seeing a large area of bright sky. Try adding just a little plus (+) exposure compensation.
I've done a mod where I have lightened the shadows in photo shop and sharpened just a little. (click on modifications above) Often a little sharpening is required after resizing for uploading the internet.
regards
Ian

Welcome to ePhotozine Critique Gallery.
Good photo and treatment. A nice first post.
I've done a crop to 7x5 format to bring building further into picture and increase it's relative size a little.
Click on modifications above.
regards
Ian

Welcome to the ePhotozine Critique Gallery.
A competent first post.
Exposure, focus and colours look good to me. Lighting looks fine, shadow are not too harsh. Slight loss of detail due to hotspot/ reflection on the lemon.That could be cloned a bit with reduced opacity?
The composition is OK but what I don't like is the whole Kiwi fruit. It spoils the image being dull and dark in colour. Needs something else there to balance, maybe half a lemon?
regards
Ian

quote "I am playing around with flare filters in photoshop. Does this lens flare effect look natural?"

No it does not look natural to me, but I love the effect, good image.
Lots of lovely light and vitality in this picture .
I think a higher shutter speed (higher ISO to compensate) would have been better, unless you wanted the movement which shows in hand/foot.
Photo would be even better if she had leaper higher to give total separation from ground. (or camera lower)
These are my views, hope you get more comments etc,
regards
Ian

Good picture, lovely bird capture.
I've done a mod, adjusted in levels, sharpened, increased contrast and brightened.
You could go back to RAW image and increase clarity and vibrance in the RAW converter, you can pick up punch with those sliders.
You maybe could tone down the high lights on nose, I ran the burn tool over it. In ACR try decreasing highlights.
If you are using ARC try 40 clarity and 20 vibrance. I also increase saturation there by about 10.
Vibrance
Vibrance boosts the saturation of your lower-saturated colors. That means that it won’t over saturate colors that are already bright. Another great feature of vibrance is that it won’t turn your skin tones orange like the Saturation slider will.
Clarity
Clarity has a similar functionality to contrast; however, it works on the midtones of the image rather than the entire image like contrast.
Saturation
Saturation increases or decreases color intensity across all channels. Too much saturation will make your photos look fake and blow out your colors, while -100 saturation will remove all color.

There are lots of approaches in ACR and PS,
regards
Ian

Good image.
You must take care, a friend of mine fell off a cliff taking a photo! He's no longer with us.
I've done two mods where I've lightened the shadows a touch. Some viewers may not see this as an improvement as the picture shows two trekkers in a deep dark valley, so shadows are to be expected.
This is a record travel shot so really should be accurate. However ~I've my second mod flips the image to show a composition point. There are a number of lines leading the eye towards the blue sky and the higher ground, lines on the ice plus the line of the two walkers. Also in the flipped image the prominent figure is now placed on the 'first' third.
In traditional western art and photography these lines should lead from the left into the image as in the flipped image. I think the photographer is Indian and I'm ignorant of how the Indian eye works when viewing images.
These are my views, I hope there will be some more input and comments on this picture,
regards
Ian

Impressive image. Great composition and camera position.
Three points of possible improvement that I would make. Clone out the search light effect in the sky, clone out the blue traffic arrow and (I think) the object in the middle foreground.
Another thing I noticed was the difference in colour between the two sides. Was it always like that or something that happened in processing? It's like two images each with it's own white balance.

Willie where are you?
Willie........???I bet you could correct that with some clever photoshop work, I'll have a try but................

regards
Ian

James
I've just looked a Elements 8 on my wife's computer (Mac edition)
To convert to BW as Pauls suggestion using slides.
Enhance (top bar) > convert to black and white > slides for RGB appear, play with these for desired effect.

To enhance blacks and whites which is what I did for my mod
Layer( in top bar) > new adjustment layer > levels > new layer > you should see histogram and three eye droppers, black, mid grey and white,
take the black and click around image in darker areas until you like it, then same with white, play about you can make it too black and white.
The image will now be saved in psd (ps format) you will need to flatten image (layer > flatten image) and save back to jpeg.

Thing is with both PS and Elements there are always a number of ways of achieving same effect, also they keep moving controls about with new editions.
regards
Ian

Working on the assumption that the image is about notches made by ropes when towing barges and the tow path used by the puling horses.
I have made a mod to concentrate the eye on a. the notches, b the towpath.
Why this works well is because the important notches are further in the frame and therefore more noticeable and the diminishing towpath is emphasised with out the lumpy bit on the right.

This is my view based on what I think you are trying to achieve, you details regarding the purpose of the image are a little vague,
regards
Ian