Alone on the Ghats

You could have come down on the ISO and used a larger aperture if you had wanted to, just to improve the overall quality, though it doesn't detract from a nicely observed scene. I added a mod to get rid of the blue material, and to tidy up a few intrusions. I think it helps isolate the figure and the doorway more easily. I also adjusted the contrast slightly too.

Otherwise, a good shot, IMHO.

Nick

By: WeeGeordieLass

fracture

And here was me thinking of the complex juxtaposition of buildings and landscape, vis-a-vis the destruction of the natural to make room for the man-made, which when abandoned, reverts to being an organic part of the landscape, and the more dilapidated it becomes, the more part of the landscape we perceive it to be.

Other than that, I'm not sure I get exactly what you are saying - it just looks like a picture with a mirrored surface across it distorting the reflection. You may need to give more of an explanation of what you are trying to show, whether you think you've achieved it and why (or not).

It's hard to give critique on such a subjective and non-conformist picture, as composition etc goes out the window.

Nick

By: hannahljf

Friends

A lovely moment caught, just a small shame the girl on the right isn't smiling too.

You've done the crop and rotation you needed, I might be inclined to push the colours a little too, and the contrast, to make it really pop from the screen.
You could even do it selectively on the dresses, to keep the softer skin textures and avoid "panda eyes".

Nick

By: WeeGeordieLass

I've got my eye on you!

The detail is there, it just needs a bit of work to bring it out.
It's a competent shot, and more special for you because it was captured in the wild, though unfortunately you can get just as good, if not better, an image with a tethered bird!
As you have seen, tiny differences can make a big difference, and one difference I'd make is to trim a small amount from the top. I think you need a little room for the eagle to look into, but the small change of picture aspect means less wasted space, though Trev's crop looks ok too.

Nick

By: briantjjones

Early Sunrise

It looks to me as though it could do with a slight anticlockwise rotation, for aesthetic purposes. It is a nice atmospheric shot, though the colours are muted, especially in the sky, which would be so much better if it were more yellow. A crop to a more letterbox shape would suit well too, methinks.

Might try a mod.

Nick

By: Sone

The Mouth

Do they eat jumbo sausages then?



Nick

By: paulbroad

Flow through the Trees

I agree the colours are all muted and very similar, but with more drama, it wouldn't matter. The main problem here making it dramatic enough for it not to matter.
Maybe getting closer to the water and using a vertical framing, using the pebbles as foreground interest (as they would be bigger in the frame) and the shape of it running through the trees would give more prominence in the frame. At the moment, all it's doing is reflecting the colours of it's surroundings and adding to the blandness.

Perhaps more dramatic light would help add textures to the trees and pebbles, but they don't seem too sharp (surprising considering how good the lens is), so maybe there is a little shake or focussing error, but there shouldn't be. Shooting at the beginning or end of the day with the sun lower would help bring out more detail with the low sun in the right direction.

Oh, that mod.....no, no, no, no, no. bad HDR!!

Nick

By: RobertFranklinPhotography

Steps

That is dangerous. They are close to walking over the cornice, which is liable to break off in warm afternoons as the sun makes the snow softer. You can see the jagged bits where some has broken off before.

Mountain photography always suffers from having the best angles in inaccessible places (unless you are an experienced Alpinist) and at this time of day you get a lot of haze. Careful filtration is required, but better to shoot when the sun is in a better place (ie not right in front of you). That said, I still want to be there, so it works for me, but then mountains always have that effect.

Nick

By: KurtSkeels

Home to the Spiders

Working with what you had, I think trying to move so the web was more against the shadows would have been better. As you can see, half the image is out of focus bright wall, adding nothing to the picture.
It's often best with close ups like this to set the lens to minimum focus, then rock back and forth until what you want is in focus, especially as you have a shutter speed that is plenty fast enough for hand holding, though you could have reduced the ISO a little to improve quality.

Nick

By: Sone

Lost in Thought

I like it. Lighting is entirely appropriate for the mood, I think the colour is good and my only criticism really is her eye make-up is a bit heavy - on first viewing, it makes her eyes look a funny shape, like she has a squint.

I think it would be very powerful if she kept her head there and raised her eyes to look at the camera.

Nick

By: frattonfreak

Reach for the Sky

A pleasant image, and not a bad conversion. You've done well to keep the verticals perfect too, though the sky has gone a little blocky (probably the result of noise reduction and excessive darkening?) and I find the corner of the railing bottom right slightly intrusive with the clean line of the railing behind it. Possibly a small step to the left would have solved this. Settings are ok, though a slightly smaller aperture might have improved sharpness, you don't really need 1/1600, so maybe you could have traded a couple of stops of aperture for a little less speed.

I would have liked the cyclists closer to the camera too, and maybe it falls between two stools, as they could have been either bigger or not there at all. Here they don't really have an impact. Most of the picture is concerned with the starkness of modern buildings, and the graphic nature is well suited to black and white. Having the cyclists bigger would add the human influence to the squareness of the surroundings. Nice idea though, and to add to the starkness you were looking for, you could have used a polariser (the angle of the sun looks about perfect for maximum polarisation), an effect you cannot really replicate digitally.

Nick

By: salopian

Life is a journey...

Welcome to the site. It's brave to launch straight into the critique gallery right off the bat, but it's the best place to learn quickly, as long as you can take a bit of criticism.

I'm not sure exactly what you are attempting here. the photograph isn't "of" anything - ie, there is no subject. The car window and mirror are intrusive, the trees are blurred and the colouration is very odd. It doesn't suggest a journey to me, more a snapshot.

Perhaps you need to think more about what you are trying to convey, and how best to achieve it. It's a good idea to look back at the critique gallery and see what comments were made about the sort of images you like to take, and the mistakes others have made. For instance, the sky is bland, featureless grey and fills half the image. You've added a negative exposure compensation, but the large amount of sky has underexposed the image even more, dulling the natural colour (of which there is very little anyway).
You also use quite a high ISO setting, then 1/1000 sec shutter speed. For better quality, you could reduce the ISO to 100, shoot at 1/125 and still be sharp using a 22mm focal length. I think TBH though, that you need to concentrate on the pictorial aspects first and the technical details will come.

Nick

By: ashwyn030

Another Serene Morning - Water Color

But you're not "exploring the craft of painting" - at all. If you took the image home and painted from it, then you would be, but as it is, you are just using filters and effects in your processing program. I suspect all you are doing is moving sliders and seeing what the results look like. Well, it still looks like a cheap paint-by-numbers, still without any real subject. A nice sky is seldom enough in itself without something to catch your attention and hold it. You need a big rock, a boat, something to focus on.


Quote: I can take a photo, that is in my view faulty, and make it artistic in another way.

Unfortunately, if an image is flawed, the artwork resulting from it will like as not be flawed too.

I'm not a big fan of most image processing programs' filters: to me they are in the same place as rainbow starbursts, diffraction, multi image, speed filters etc...ie all those kitsch '80s Cokin filters that are still found in the chuck out bins of small photo shops. I'm afraid I'm with Paul here - if you want a painting, and for it to look like a painting, then better to paint it. Frustrated artist or not, I'm sure you could come up with something close to this if you tried: it's only blocks of colour with no detail.

Nick

By: psu68

Serene Morning

Unfortunately, the attempt to make it look like a painting has made it look more like a paint-by-numbers with a limited palette of colours. I'm not sure exactly what you mean - are you painting from a photo then digitising it, or is this just a digital photo badly manipulated?

Assuming it's a manipulated photo, I wouldn't claim it as "fine art painting", as it isn't - just an attempt to make it look that way. There are many plug-ins and filter effects that do this in Photoshop, though the results are seldom good, nor credible as fine art, and I think the manipulation has robbed the image of some of it's appeal. The peaceful feel of the low light and soft clouds, and the gentle sound of the waves is lost in the processing. The subject can only really be the sun, whereas I'd have liked to have seen much more sky and much less water. Potentially great colours, half of the frame is grey. A strip along the bottom would anchor the sky with the cloud formations above, and the sun on the bottom right third would improve the composition.

Chase goes some way in the mod, but cutting the left cloud hurts the composition too, and I'd crop it out altogether.

Nick

By: psu68

Alone

I think it would have been better if you had moved round to the right a little, to elongate the single shadow and change the angle slightly, which would have had the added bonus of omitting the second shadow at source and filled the frame with the single cross and shadow.

There isn't much to say about the conversion, and frankly it doesn't appear too sharp. I'd expect more texture with low sidelighting, and more sharpness.

Nick

By: paulbroad

Another Purple Suprise In My Garden ...

I would suggest a shorter focal length and getting a lot closer. What Willie says, plus you have a lot of fringing around the pink petals, caused by using a (frankly not very marvellous) lens in extreme circumstances. Better to use a shorter lens, closer, on a tripod with a low ISO and a middling aperture (f/8, f/11). That will eliminate camera shake and allow a shutter speed of anything appropriate, plus the lens is working at it's optimum sharpness. Close ups and macro are better when not hand held, as any shake is exaggerated at large magnifications. Use manual focus and ensure it's focussed on exactly what you want.

Nick

By: Sone

Barmouth Bridge

As Willie says! You could have taken this shot (to keep the sand pristine), then walked forwards and right to make the bridge bigger in the shot. The idea of it stretching out to the hills is a good use of perspective, but it only occupies a small portion of the frame. If you could have gone 1/2 of the way to the water's edge (just past the big brick on the right) and shot from there, you would have eliminated a lot of dead space, used the shoreline as a near point and made the bridge bigger, yet still the perspective would have taken the end away to the mountains.

The panoramic crop helps by getting rid of the wasted space and concentrating on the subject. If you had shot this with that crop in mind in the first place, you would have been onto a winner straight away. Exposure is pretty good, as is time of day and the quality of light, just showing that these things do sometimes come together to make a picture better than the sum of it's parts.

Nick

By: RHemingway

Wayne Manor

Firstly, congrats on using grads. Too many people use PS trickery when simple steps at taking would be much easier. Unfortunately, the grad in use is too high up, and you can see the tansition. Secondly, you could have used the polariser to good effect here, as the sun is in the right place. Keep the polariser, it is just as important with digital as it is with film.
The processing is too heavy-handed for me, and the original just needs enhancing, not changing. Incongruity in images makes them seem like there's something wrong but you can't always explain it. Here, you've changed the colour balance, so a late afternoon with soft colours and long shadows has been changed to a bright summer late morning, but the shadows are still long and don't fit the new image. The sharpening effects of contrast and clarity (plus whatever other sharpening you've added) also don't sit with the late afternoon shadows.

What you do re cloning out figures is up to you, but I think you did right by losing the dog walker, as it was too close to the corner for the composition. Otherwise, not a bad image, showing the house in context - it doesn't need to be big in the frame to have an impact, but I'd dial back on the adjustments, particularly the contrast effects and colour balance.

Less is often more!

Nick

By: chrisheathcote

Golden sea

I have no wish to discourage a new member, but sometimes it seems like a picture is deliberately inserted with every basic error in it to see if it gets a reaction.

As above, there are basic errors here:

Sloping horizon
Horizon right across the centre of the image
No real subject matter
Sun right in the middle of the frame
Vignetting top right of frame, as if something has come very close to obscuring the lens
Not really very sharp anywhere

All that's missing is a palm tree growing out of someone's head.
Unfortunately, it isn't enough to just snap the sky with a good sunset. You need to consider other factors, mostly covered by Pamela.

Also, look back at similar images posted on here by others and look at the kind of comments they have got. Try to avoid the mistakes they made, and read the remarks about how to overcome/avoid them. Think why you are taking the picture - here "golden sea", ie the bit that is really golden, occupies only a very tiny part of the frame. Get closer, fill the frame with it, turn your camera the other way up and make the most of the reflections, etc etc. Think how you are going to attract people's attention in the image, and how you are going to keep it there. A coloured blob and a distant wave isn't enough.

Also, just because it's a compact point and shoot camera shouldn't mean you can't get good images, you just need to work a little harder sometimes! Keep at it, and bear Pamela's words in mind - basically think what you want to achieve and don't just snap away in hope. With digital, you can always review the images and change settings if you need to. Try different things, but most of all, keep trying.

Nick

By: adnanmujib

Late afternoon walk on the beach

As some of the other comments really, though has no-one else seen the paler haloes round the figures? I see them better on the thumbnail image, but it looks like a little dodging has been done, though the figures are in silhouette anyway, so I can't see why.

I'm surprised nobody has done a black and white version yet, as it's almost monochrome anyway, but maybe it lacks a little "punch" either way.

It's a shame that the waves are at an angle, because having them parallel to the horizon would be perfect, giving you an "Abbey Road" effect!

Nicely seen though.

Nick

By: KayC

Putra mosque and putrajaya

Slightly overexposed, and you've cut the top off the minaret.
Otherwise, I'm guessing you don't have much choice of vantage points, so well done for spotting this. Composition wise, I would prefer to see the minaret closer to the mosque than the ministry, especially as that's what it's attached to. As it bisects the image, you might as well make a feature of it, and have it dead central. I don't think you could get it on a third, because it would squeeze one of the buildings out, and they are what this image is all about, unless you could move and just shoot the mosque, leaving the ministry out.
A little colour in the sky would help, rather than a flat grey, so shooting earlier before the sky becomes black would be better. A slightly wider view would help include more of the reflections and include all of the buildings, and perhaps make a more complete image.

I'd be interested to see a really long exposure of this (ie. minutes rather than seconds), shot wider and earlier. That would really smooth out the water and emphasise the reflections.

Nick

By: rasakenal

diversity of emotions

I think the square mod is compositionally stronger, but I don't really get any emotion from it. The rider looks distracted and distant, but I don't get any tension or pre-performance nerves.

The out of focus rider looks at an uncomfortable angle, and I find myself looking at them wondering what's going on, though having them there adds context. Also, the lens isn't performing at it's best, nothing is really razor sharp, and the processing has introduced quite a lot of blockiness, particularly in the trees.

The colour balance is a little blue too. I'm guessing this was a grab shot from quite a distance, and maybe you've cropped it too. Not a bad effort, and the rider looks contemplative, but as I said, for me the emotion doesn't really come through.

Nick

By: Velja

Quiet afternoon in London

The business areas of London are usually quiet at the wekends.

I think it's a little overexposed, in order to get the buildings better, the sky is washed out. More contrast might help, and a touch less exposure. Also, I'd have liked to have the figure closer to the camera - he looks like he is wearing a suit, so would add a certain "business feel" with the office blocks, or alternatively, leave him out altogether for a deserted feel.
The verticals are pretty good, and the empty space in front would be more powerful if the car and figure were absent.

Nick

By: salopian

Heart by trails

Nice idea, and the exposure is pretty good. There isn't much there to critique really, though I would have liked to have seen more of the trails, as it's only an impression of a heart rather than a complete one. It looks a bit like you've added a blue grad effect at the bottom to hide something (heads, perhaps?) which has hidden the bottom of the heart as well.
It also looks like it's a few minutes old and is starting to dissipate - a fresh one would hold the shape better.

Nick

By: JacopoR

June Sunset in Coda Covallo, Sardinia

I think you are limited by the equipment here. I'd love a really wide sweep of that sky, and that would mean a wider lens. That would also shrink the foreground, so you might have to move to recompose.
I don't think lightening helps at all. It just looks tonemapped (effectively what was done by changing the relative tonal values) like a bad HDR. Silhouettes are better so they don't detract from the lovely sky, but what they do need to be is sharp. This has a feeling of softness, and I'd prefer it to be slightly better defined. It may even be due to resizing and upload, so the sharpness may be there in the original.

NIck

By: Jeremy_Smith