Tangled

Tyler, I like most of this shot. The ropes on the rail themselves would be great. Excellent concept, if you wait until that boat is out of the way and reshoot that would be great. Crop out the top third as well. The ropes will tell a great story.

Ken-I REALLY appreciate your comments! I understand what you are saying and realize your idea is probably the best. The ironic thing is that I intentionally shot it with the boat there because I wanted a distant object to be out of focus. I kind of stole the idea from a shot I saw of a pile of fishing nets on a dock with shrimp boats in the background. I was hoping to imitate something similar but saw when I got home that it wasn't the proper lay out for it. I have a few more shots that I'll add on--will you look at them and give any feedback that you have? I would really appreciate it! I feel like I can take decent sunset shots but I'm getting tired of only being able to shoot a few minutes out of the day. So, I'm trying to learn some tricks and develop a better eye for what works when you don't have an obviously colorful sky. The shot attached to this is the same one in color. Next I'll attach a couple of shots that I cropped--the boat was also in them but was much higher so if I made a square composition it was almost cropped out. I'd be interested in knowing your thoughts. Once again, thank you VERY much for taking the time to help me!

Here is one of the shots that I cropped where the boat was higher in the composition.

One more shot...

I know this is asking a lot, Tyler ... but could you resize those attachments? (If they're less than 511 pixels sideways, they'll show within the thread without a link). It would be easier to evaluate if I can see them without scrolling.

Lou Ann--That is not at all "asking a lot"--after all, you are trying to help me! But, on the other hand, it kind of is asking a lot because I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't know HOW to resize them! (So, you know I'm not lying about not manipulating any of my pictures!) All I did to these pictures was open them in zoombrowser and hit save and save them as low to medium resolution JPEGS. How do I shrink the pixel size? I'm sorry I'm so ignorant--I really know computers pretty well but have just never really done anything with digital pictures. If you can point me in the right direction, I would love to resize things so ya'll can lend your expertise to me. Thanks and sorry for being so difficult! I appreciate your efforts to help me--I hate scrolling to look at the pictures too--I usually just save them to my desktop and open them from there where they come up smaller for some reason. Any help is appreciated!

You're not being difficult at all! Before I can help you, though, I need to know what software you have at hand ... photoshop elements? MSOffice photo editor? Gimp? There are some free photo editing softwares out there ... if you don't have one, it would be a great idea to either download a free one, or invest in one that can do some of that stuff for you. There might even be one on your computer already! :-)

Lou Ann-This probably sounds VERY rookie-ish, but the only thing I've used is the zoombrowser program (that comes with Canon cameras). It is the viewing program that opens automatically after you load pictures from the camera. It does cropping and has brightness/contrast/saturation which is everything I've even played around with using. I know I do have another, more advanced editing program but I'll have to find out exactly what it is. It's not photoshop, but I opened it up the other day and it has a substantial number of tools that I was playing with. I'll let you know what programs I have later when I get home to my computer--to be honest, I can probably figure it out if I play with it for a while. Since I'm just starting out so am not "used" to anything, do you have a recommendation of a program I should use until I get a photoshop? Thanks!

I'm no expert on software. I use Photoshop cs, merely because it seems to be what most other quality photographers use. But I have read that GIMP, available for free online, is comprable.

 

I would be willing to bet that your Canon software has the ability to resize an image. Hopefully there should be a menu that says "Image" or possibly "Tools". (It's probably "Image".) Under that menu, there should be an option that says "Resize" or "Image Size" or "Scale Image". Make sure if there is an option that requires the image proportions to stay the same that you keep that selected. (It's usually a default.)

 

Now, I'm off to answer your other comment on my Jefferson image. :-) (By the way ... I have a feeling that we have a similar faith background.)

Ditto on Lou Anns comments, resize first and it is much easier to evaluate the picture Tyler.

Tyler - sorry, I've been trying to get some stuff done around the house ... have family coming into town next week. :-) Here come those smaller-ed files.

First...

Next....

The third....

Now - I think that the middle one, the B&W cropped version, is my favorite. :-)

All comments are appreciated! There is already some good discussion

on this shot. I kind of like the boat in the shot but what do I

know?!?! What do you guys think? Thanks for the help!

Tyler~ I agree with Lou Ann Cropped and in black and white makes one powerful statement, the boat in the backgrounds adds depth and perspective, Love the Folley Beach SC logo. The statement and main focal becomes the ropes left laying around, great job, and thanks for sharing... Cole

Cropping out the boat is the best. Next get rid of the gray. The image is a bit muddy...needs stronger blacks and a good range of grays to white. Then for my poor eyes you will have an image to talk about.

David--Thanks for your input. Score one more for the "no boat" side! I don't know why, but I always envisioned this shot with the boat and thought the boat added something--seems like I'm alone in that thought though. :) About the colors--how do I get rid of the gray shades and make it more black and white? Could you (or someone else) repost an altered shot as an example of what you are talking about so I can better understand? (or, is this something I need to do with better lighting/exposure?) Thanks again for the input--I appreciate it!

The foreground needs some constrast to bring out the shadows in the decking; the rope needs some differentiation from the deck. In PS or other software you can tweak the curve to make it a little steeper -- more contrast. Try using a gradient mask layer to darken background, since its out of focus anyway give it less emphasis, but the boat needs some tonal work so that it stands out from the deck. The sky in the background is too light. I see some clouds, can you bring them out?

Try to get something like this from your original; editing low qual. jpegs does not give good results.

Hi Tyler, me back again, I reworked your rope image, now I am by no means an expert in photoshop, or even use it, but I altered your image using a free software found on downloads.com. I enhanced your contrast and saturation levals by 3% and sharpened by using the unshark mask feature. I hope this is the info. you were looking for. Again, great job with this picture, the boat does add drama here, but I assumed your main focal point was the rope, let me know if I am off base here.. Cole