!st winter shoot for me thought this one was nice comments

<p>this was my first winter shoot and thought it would be nice to get some comments and feedback on the pic. I will post some more later but I had this one ready to go. It was shot at ISO 250, f7.1, 1/80 with 40DA limited. shot around 11 this morning. There is suppose to be a lake behind her been its been cold enough it froze and then it snowed so no lake. let me know what you think. I also used a polarizer filter and shot center weighted focus off tripod and remote.</p>

<p>ok I sized to 700 but let me try again</p>

<p>sized to 500 what is going on</p>

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<p>Jordan, I believe the problem is that the filename suffix must be .jpg; you are adding + " photo.net" to the end of the filenames. Better to do "keri 2 - photo.net.jpg" or something like that.</p>

<p>My $0.02, maybe a <em>little </em> bit of fill, since she is back-lit?</p>

<p>Nice pic, but slightly underexposed. A slight amount of fill will add sparkle to the eyes. I would not use the in-camera meter unless I were metering a grey card. An ambient meter is called for. I made a couple of quick changes to give you the flavour of what I'm talkin' about.<br>

Mel</p>

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<p>The edit looks heaps better, but over all the image looks soft to me, maybe a little to soft.<br>

It also seems to have some artifacts in it....On the + side, the composition is great as is the color and the model is quite lovely....</p>

<p>On a side note, I am watching the original batman on TV right now and boy that rocks...I am watching the 1966 batman. I was one year old when it came out...But I digress</p>

<p>Jordan, we're going to have to see a bikini clad model in the snow in order to evaluate the full capabilities of the process. Tell your model she needs to make the sacrifice for the sake of improving photography.</p>

<p>Nice try, John!<br>

JP</p>

<p>This is a very nice shot! I agree with others' comments that a little pop of fill flash would have been nice. </p>

<p>It seems that many of your shots, nearly all of a young lady, are a bit on the soft side. It makes one ponder why..?</p>

<p>I agree with a little fill. Only 1/4 or better 1/8 strength (or a silver reflector. I think gold might warm it up too much for a winter shot, but that's just my preference). Just enough fill light to put the catch light in her eyes.</p>

<p>A nice shot. Good job.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>ok went in on the raw image and changed somethings, laptops are hard to edit on by the way. anyways here is the 2nd time around.</p><div></div>

<p>I am completely out of my league in saying what I'm about to say (portraiture, what's that?), but here it goes...</p>

<p>But first, a question- is your model an experienced model? Why do I ask? Her smile.</p>

<p>Her smile looks staged, not natural. (I've noticed this in other posed model shots from you, too.) Her smile looks like her cheek muscles are doing all the work. Use your hand to cover just the area of her mouth, does the rest of her face indicate that she has a "happy smile"? (When I do it, the remainder of her face looks fairly neutral, emotionless.) She looks like she was commanded to smile, not like she had a genuine reason to smile. Her smile would be more genuine and natural if she were smiling due to an emotional response to something, like seeing a box full of kittens, or having the happy birthday song sung to her, or if she just heard something on the humorous side that made her smile as part of laughter, or remembering a happy occasion. Even modeling in front of a still image camera, she is still an actor, and she has to look the part she is trying to put forth. (Is that what stage/screen actors call "method acting"?) It takes SO little muscular... something... in other areas of the face to tell a complete, emotional story. That's probably why when people can "read" someone's face, it's often accurate to judge whether or not someone's emotional state jives with how they say "they are doing". This makes me wonder about a challenge- rather than having a model show a happy smile, have them show a sad face. A real, genuine, honest, emotionally charged sad face. This would be quite different from someone being told to just "look sad". Or have them show a real "worried" face. Or a real "angry" face. Or a real "emotionless" face. How would a photographer have to interact with a model to bring out these kinds of real emotions? (Boy, I'm getting off topic now! But maybe not.)</p>

<p>I read/heard one time in the past that a natural smile will be shown in/around the eyes, maybe because more facial muscles are used in a natural looking smile vs. a staged smile(??). A real smile may even show slight skin wrinkles at the outer corners of the eyes, which we may be overzealous about Photoshopping out. Try it yourself- stand in front of a mirror, tell yourself to smile like Great Aunt Betty is posing you for the umpteenth time at the family reunion. Then smile again because you just thought of some happy thoughts, or like you just heard good news, or like you are about to giggle because Cousin Bob is standing behind Aunt Betty mocking her without her knowledge.</p>

<p>Rather than telling someone to "Smile!", instead engage in some brief conversation, such as, "Boy, you've got cute dimples", or "You know, that scarf really goes well with your hair", or something like that. I'm told ladies like compliments (where's my wife?), it's an easy way to get them to smile (and maybe add a bit of natural color to their cheeks in the form of blushing).</p>

<p>I dunno, I could be completely wrong here, too. I take pictures of trees and streams and tiny things, I'm not brave enough to make photos of people, especially really photogenic people. Other than that, all I can offer is it's a very nice looking photo of an attractive lady, but it's lacking the true emotion for me (no emotion in her eyes), more like a standardized high school year book picture. There you go, look through your old year books, hundreds of shots to preview. You should be able to tell the difference between staged smiles and real, emotional smiles, especially if any candid "hallway" shots are in the book. Hey Mel, where did her dimple go from her right cheek (photo 2)? I like dimples. Watch for accidental stuff, like the stray clump of hair sticking up out of her right coat collar. Looks like she's shedding.</p>

<p>Sorry to run on and on and on... It's past my bedtime and I'm rambling. Just hoping somewhere in all of what I wrote something made sense... maybe?</p>

<p>heaps better! try des the red channel a hair. Her skin does not look quite right...</p>

<p>these are girls I have known forever that are not models they just like to go out and have fun, this is her actual smile, we were joking about something at the time I took the picture, we ain't got no professional models here in our little Ky. town, there are only a couple of them that have shoes</p>

<p>Okay. Well, I'd think that's even better, you know them well enough to know how to get them to show their emotions. Anyway, you are a much braver photographer than me, keep up your efforts, you'll only get better!</p>

<p>Jordan, I will not ask if those without shoes are expecting :-), but I do think at least one of those country girls will make it up here to NYC and and try to make it onto a magazine cover.<br>

<em>It was shot at ISO 250, f7.1, 1/80 with 40DA limited. shot around 11 this morning... I also used a polarizer filter and shot center weighted focus off tripod and remote.</em><br>

Let's go backwards:<br>

remote- fired with a remote so no movement from pressing the shutter<br>

off tripod - meaning on tripod? or handheld? if on tripod - no movement from mirror slap; if handheld maybe movement<br>

Center-weighted focus - focus possibly on tip of her nose, not her eyes, which are slightly soft.<br>

polarizer filter - needs an extra stop or so of light to make whites, white.<br>

11am on an overcast day - was your WB set to sunny or cloudy? Sunny would have given her the slight blue cast.<br>

I took many shots of an eagle on snow and ice the other day and had the ISO way up because there was no sun.<br>

I tweaked your original shot in Photoshop Elements - set white point on snow, grey point on tops of trees in background, black in shadow of near tree then undid it because it undid previous two settings. Then I did an autosharpen, which I'm not happy with because of the stray hair near her face but the sharpening improves everything else. Oh yeah, I removed her right earring, it was distracting. <br>

Jordan, I like taking portraits and I have problems with softness and blur and sometimes lighting, which happens when one is shooting a moving target on the streets and in the parks of NYC. I've only made portraits of one young woman who allowed me to do so for two sessions (I've mentioned her to you). Trying to correct your photos helps me a lot as did looking at the errors I made with her pictures. People here keep mentioning that your shots are "soft". Maybe you need to tweak the sharpness setting on your camera OR your lenses are back focusing. Something you might want to check on. My camera was doing that and now that I've fixed it (back focusing), I don't think I need new glasses anymore. Also check your diopter adjustment on the viewfinder.<br>

Here's my tweaks:</p>

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<p>without earring</p><div></div>

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<p>we ain't got no professional models here in our little Ky. town, there are only a couple of them that have shoes</p>

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<p>LOL!!</p>

<p>Jordan, not much wrong to me with this shot. She has great natural beauty and you've brought it out well. I really like the background in the picture too and the contrast with the tree.</p>

<p>Here are my tweaks on the shot. It looks like on the earlier shot you used negative clarity in ACR, whereas I suggest turning it up to 13 or so. I decreased the overall brightness by a bit, but increased the midtones, made the WB a tad more blue and tint -13 towards green. That red needs more vibrance too.</p>

<p>Just some guidance, you are on the right track.</p>

<p>ME</p>

<p><img src="http://www.smugmug.com/photos/759960266_zPNEu-L.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>ME</p>

<p> </p>

<p><em>I decreased the overall brightness by a bit, but increased the midtones, made the WB a tad more blue and tint -13 towards green.</em><br>

Wow, Michael, that's counterintuitive! But it sure as hell works.<em><br /> </em></p>

<p>Thanks Howard.</p>

<p>Though I steer by eye when post processing, there is some rational thought lingering behind the scenes.</p>

<p>The rendering of her face was too dull and the image itself was flat--especially considering there is a wide dynamic range to the shot and a sense of balance I enjoy.</p>

<p>A general brightness increase (this is levels and not exposure which ups the noise too much in this case) would start to blow out the snowy background, as well as the left side of the model's face. Then we'd lose that dimple--a certain bad move! So to compliment a brightening of the tones of her face and jacket I tamped down the total shot just a smidge. Correct WB brought forth her skin and the upping of vibrance added a little charge to that red coat and tree bark.</p>

<p>I think Tyler created a winner here.</p>

<p>ME</p>

<p>Jordan, I think we just got the full tutorial! Thank you, Michael.</p>

 

<p>ok on the sharpness issue where people are saying they are soft. I can finally answer that one even though I didn't want to. We have a great photographer locally that to even out skin tones or make up blemishes will use gaussian blur lower the opacity and then go in with mask and brush and sharpen back in certain features i.e. eyes, eye brows, lips earings, etc. I am working on getting this right because I like this way of correcting these things and it gives their skin a soft effect. Now saying that I may be heavy on the blur and opacity, but once I can post one where nobady notices what I have done then I know I have got it right. on this particular picture I believe I did the blur at 12 or 13 set the opacity at 30 or 40 percent and then masked at 100% the details I wanted to resharpen. Now go easy on me when you all leave feedback on my methods please. my next steps to learning are metering and focusing what to use and when.</p><div></div>

<p>Hmmm. Softness wasn't an issue to me. Or my rookie eye didn't pick up on it. But, it looks like you utilized some pretty heavy cropping. I'd guess your first image that you posted in this thread represents no more than about 10% of the area of the original photo. Did you have the opportunity to move closer to her (foot zoom), or if using a zoom lens to zoom in? Did you snap this shot in this manner intending to crop it down? Was this image intended to be your keeper (or something very close to it)?</p>

<p>If this perspective and such was to be your keeper... rule of thirds. Her face is almost dead center, the horizon is in the center. Just sayin'... Lighter cropping from the left and top would have changed how things look overall, and increased the size of your subject in the image. Don't stop trying.</p>

<p>Jordan,<br>

I'm going to pat you on the back and then I'm going to slap you around a bit. I think you can take it, so here it goes.<br>

You have talent. You eventually get there, through manipulation of the photograph. Look at what you started with compared to what you submitted here. You turned a blah snapshot into a decent fashion shot. Bravo!<br>

Now comes the slapping around...<br>

You are trying to run before you can walk. Forget all the post processing for now. You need to concentrate on the basics such as proper exposure, depth of field and composition. That is, if your ambition is to become a photographer (not necessarily professional). Otherwise, you will become just a great photoshopper who can turn a mediocre picture into a halfway decent photograph. Photoshop is a fantastic tool, but it is not a replacement for photographic skill. Use photoshop to tweak an already great picture to make it better. You will NEVER make any money at this if you are spending hours behind a computer trying to make something out of nothing. Try Pre-processing instead of post-processing. By this, I mean that you should learn to envision what the photograph will look like before you make it. You need to "SEE IT" before you shoot it, not the other way around. In this example, you "SAW IT" in front of the computer and not in the field. Plan your shoot in advance including location, poses, lighting- everything. Then you can deviate from the plan to get other shots that you see as the shoot develops. But you still want to get all of the planned shots too.<br>

I challenge you to throw your camera into full manual mode and try this type of shot again. Try telling the camera what to do for a change. You will learn alot and what you learn, you will NEVER forget. HINT- If you take my challenge, stop by a photo store and pick up a grey card or borrow an ambient meter from someone.<br>

There, that didn't hurt too much (I hope) :-)<br>

Keep at it.<br>

Mel</p>

<p>Mels advice is great.. My eldest Daughter Cathryn, used to be a portrait photographer for Rose studios in Hollywood. She worked there part time while she was in college...The reason I bring this up is because her primary job was shooting school kids and teachers for school pictures. So she used to shoot thousands and thousands of portraits..Then On weekends, she would assist the main photogs as they shot portfolios for wanna be actors and actresses. The reason I bring this up is because she had no time to waste processing pics because she got paid by the job..The sooner you finished, the sooner you where on to the next one and so on. Now one of the things she studied in college is photography and she took Photoshop as part of her master of arts program...I say this not to brag about her, but to say she really knows what she is doing...and is a wizard with the complete CS4 suite and lightroom...Believe it or not, she shot mostly Jpegs...She has a Nikon D200 and a D300, Yet for most of the time she used my K20D with my 77LTD because the Jpegs out of the cam where near perfect. The skins tones where spot on and so it was simple PP work that she did mostly in Light room in batches....As mel said..get the pic right the first time or as close to right as possible. She always used an external light meter, studio lights and when required an reflector....<br>

My biggest pet peeve with your image, as I said earlier was the softness and artifacts that we now know where introduced by sharpening.. For now forget that stuff and I will even say forget RAW for the time being. As mel said, you need to walk before running...</p>

<p>I have noticed that most of your images appear soft. Now if your doing this on purpose, you may want to back this off a bit. If your not, then check the cam for back focus, which I suspect is part of the problem...Anyway, just my opinion and I know the least about this stuff here.</p>