10 replies to this topic

[eagle247]

A photo i took last summer. It is straight out of camera as i am only a hobbyist and do not have the time to spend editing my images.

Constructive Criticism please. 

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[deano]

Eagle, I like these types of shots, shows some creativity.  There are some of our fellow Nikonites that are much better at critiquing than i.  My suggestion would be to lighten the shadows a bit, but if you do that you lose the suns rays coming through the flower.  But, just out of the camera is pretty sweet.

[TBonz]

It is a nice shot for SOOC...it could be an incredible shot with some editing.  I am not sure why you wouldn't take 5 minutes or so to make it a better image...Editing doesn't have to take long, but a few adjustments here and there can make an amazing difference...

[Malice]

In my opinion, the arrangement of the top border is a bit unfortunate. There are a few unresolved leaves in the upper left corner and a small feathery leaf from the plant stem behind the plane of focus that is hanging beside the stem. Those two elements are a bit distracting.

 

Overall the image might benefit from brightening the shadows and/or dialing down the highlights a little bit, as the foreground is rather dark and shadowy.

[Merco_61]

When you shoot against the light, taming the dark foreground is a problem if you want to keep postprocessing to a minimum. In situations like these, carefully dialing in some ADL can give a more balanced result SOOC.

 

Why not shoot in raw + jpeg and use the jpg SOOC, except for really good shots in difficult light like this one and spend some time getting the most you can out of the raw file? If you start processing your shots, the time spent to get even better results than SOOC will soon be much shorter.

[sunshine]

I agree with the others here that this is a good shot with potential to be even better.  You might be surprised at the result.  I rarely spend more than 5 minutes per image doing post processing.  Using Lightroom or a similar application that is designed to perform "global" edits can dramatically improve a shot with little effort.  And since Lightroom is non-destructive, one button click can take you back to the original if you don't like the results.  Adobe offers free trials, as do some other vendors if you're Adobe-averse.

[eagle247]

OK, i think why i don't edit is because i have no idea what i am doing so i am under confident which in turn puts me off doing it. my friends spend hours editing so i just presumed it had to take ages.

[TBonz]

I rarely spend more than a couple of minutes on an image...but then I am not doing fine art photography with lots of retouching or cloning things in or out of images...

 

Shoot in RAW - you can use LightRoom or one of many other products and the editing of the RAW file is non-destructive.  The RAW file isn't changed, so you can always go back to the original and try a different option (or options).  The first images may take you awhile as you "play" and learn what the different tools do on different images, but soon you will be able to look at an image and have a pretty good idea of what tools you want and even what settings you want to change...

[deano]

I also use Lightroom almost exclusively.  Some editing in PS when I want to play with an image.  That being said, I am shooting my one week, one lens in .jpg

[Ron]

First of all, it's a very nice image. I really like this one a lot... but then I'm a sucker for backlit photos.

 

As the others have indicated, it could be even better with a little editing. You can indeed spend hours on an image but most of us, myself included, probably spend a lot less than that. I use Lightroom for about 99% of my editing and only jump into Photoshop when an image needs some drastic changes.

 

I don't believe this image requires much work at all. I would probably only give it a vertical crop and add a bit of vignetting... maybe 18 to 20% (in Lightroom). You could lighten the foreground a bit but I don't really thing it's necessary. That would, I believe, remove much of the drama of this photograph. Did I mention that I like backlit photos? 

 

--Ron

[Merco_61]

Editing doesn't have to be timeconsuming as long as the captures SOOC are nearly there... As an example: During my lunch hour today, I shot 151 frames. Selecting which 11 were ones I wanted to share and can stand behind took about 30 minutes this evening. Editing those 11 took about 15 minutes using Capture NX-D. The finished photos are here (post #4). They all looked a bit bland SOOC, like this:

 

 

The same shot, after editing:

 

 

The reason for the many shots is that it was windy and I was shooting at quite high magnification, handheld.