Photography.

[Daft]

They're a bit dead. (I mean totally no offence.) They just seem surreal and lifeless.

[Ashley]

Personally, I'd warm up the images a bit by adding some red and yellow in the colour balance. Maybe a bit tighter cropping too so the main focus is the people, without other distractions. For example, in Jones Wedding 2010 Image 11 (the one with them cutting the cake), I'd consider cropping out the heart as it distracts too much from couple cutting the cake, which should be the main focus of the image.

 

I also noticed some "unfortunate placement" in picture 12. The guy to the right appears to have a balloon for a head. It's awesome.

 

That's just my opinion though, I'm no expert (I've never done wedding photography before) and the fun of photography is that it's subjective. All the images seem good to me, just need some minor tweaks in Photoshop IMO.

 

Haha balloon-head guy, hadn't noticed him. Cropping was done on most of the images, and I know I cropped the cutting the cake ones in a few ways for the client. I'm personally not a fan of warming up photographs, gives an air of artificiality (shocking that, as its artificial). If they want me to warm up any photos I will, but they're not paying me for that so the photoshopping was kept to a minimum

 

Thanks for the feedback though

 

I like this;

 

 

Its a nice set. Although it reminds me of the bland countryside that I'm surrounded, and bored, by

 

Could anyone give me some photoshopping advice? Planted a face from one photo onto another and its a bit less focused than the rest of the image. Anyway of improving this? Gave the sharpen tool a quick try but it just looked pixelated. Is there any manual way of improving the quality/definition?

Edited April 11, 2010 by Ashley

[Goafer]

They're a bit dead. (I mean totally no offence.) They just seem surreal and lifeless.

 

Yeah, they do a bit. Although the point of HDR is to look a bit surreal since they're showing a range that a camera (and the eye I assume) can't see. Here's a few better ones:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haha balloon-head guy, hadn't noticed him. Cropping was done on most of the images, and I know I cropped the cutting the cake ones in a few ways for the client. I'm personally not a fan of warming up photographs, gives an air of artificiality (shocking that, as its artificial). If they want me to warm up any photos I will, but they're not paying me for that so the photoshopping was kept to a minimum

 

Thanks for the feedback though

 

Ah cool. I just had a look at some of the older weddings (Botterill and work experience specifically) and they look warmer. I think it might be because the Jones one is mainly inside. The Botterill and work experience ones are really good IMO.

[Daft]

Yeah, they do a bit. Although the point of HDR is to look a bit surreal since they're showing a range that a camera (and the eye I assume) can't see. Here's a few better ones:

 

 

Okay, that is Goddamn slick!!

 

Is HDR all post-processing?

[Ashley]

Ah cool. I just had a look at some of the older weddings (Botterill and work experience specifically) and they look warmer. I think it might be because the Jones one is mainly inside. The Botterill and work experience ones are really good IMO.

 

The Botterill ones were taken with a crappy old camera actually, but they were fine with that. Maybe its the shiny gloss of my new camera :p (work experience ones were an old Cannon, I forget the exact name. Powershot 1?) Actually thinking about it the outdoor ones turned out fairly well, considering it was a bit gloomy that day.

 

Thanks for the feedback dude

 

And to repeat something that may have gotten buried under an edit;

 

Could anyone give me some photoshopping advice? Planted a face from one photo onto another and its a bit less focused than the rest of the image. Anyway of improving this? Gave the sharpen tool a quick try but it just looked pixelated. Is there any manual way of improving the quality/definition?

[Goafer]

Okay, that is Goddamn slick!!

 

Is HDR all post-processing?

 

I have no idea how it's done either. The only thing I can think of is that his/her camera took the 3 exposures ludicrously quick or that only the background is HDR and the car is from one of the exposures.

 

HDR is basically taking 3 or more different exposures of the same picture. 1 is the normal exposure to capture the mid range details, 1 is under exposed to capture highlight details and 1 is over exposed to capture the details in the shadows. All 3 pictures are merged (in Photoshop or Photomatix. Photomatix is much better) so that you get more detail than a camera can normally capture in one picture/exposure. Basically a camera only has a certain range it can capture, but by taking 3 or more pictures/exposures you can cheat.

 

And to repeat something that may have gotten buried under an edit;

 

Could anyone give me some photoshopping advice? Planted a face from one photo onto another and its a bit less focused than the rest of the image. Anyway of improving this? Gave the sharpen tool a quick try but it just looked pixelated. Is there any manual way of improving the quality/definition?

 

All I can think of is the smart sharpen tool. Just fanny around with the settings until it's the best you can get it. Is that what you've already tried? There's a few sharpen tools in PS and the smart sharpen seems to be the best one.

Edited April 11, 2010 by Goafer
Automerged Doublepost

[Daft]

If you shoot in RAW would you only need to take the one shot?

[Goafer]

If you shoot in RAW would you only need to take the one shot?

 

It is possible to use just one RAW file (Photomatix has an option to make an HDR from one RAW file), but I've read that it doesn't get as good results as taking 3 separate pictures. I think it's because changing the exposure in a RAW editor isn't the same as actually taking different exposures. Might be wrong on the reasoning behind it, but I know it's advisable to use 3 separate exposures.

 

To make it easier to get the 3 exposures, most cameras have a bracketing setting anyway. If you turn it on, the camera will take the first photo right, the second under exposed and the third over exposed automatically (although you still have to take all 3, it just handles the exposures itself). Bracketing usually has different settings so that you can choose the range of bracketing (half a stop either way, a full stop either way etc).

 

It's best to use bracketing in aperture priority mode though so that the aperture/focal range stays constant and camera changes the shutter speed to get the different exposures. A tripod is handy, although Photomatix can auto align the 3 images for you. If you set the camera to constantly take photos when the button is held (burst mode or whatever) you can get the 3 exposures taken quite quickly.

 

Hopefully that makes sense, I'm fairly new to it myself really. I found it a lot easier to understand once I'd tried it though. It all seemed like gibberish when I was reading about it.

Edited April 11, 2010 by Goafer

[Daft]

Not sure my camera has a bracket mode...

 

I'll see if I can get my head round this later today. Cheers!

[Goafer]

Took some more HDR pictures today:

 

 

 

[Gio001]

I've seen quite a few HDR pictures & they all seem too saturated, overblown or like a image from a video game. I like the concept of taking the 3 bracketed exposures & merging them but can you tone them down to make them look more natural but with the added detail of the bracketed exposures that would be missed with the usual 1 exposure or do they all come out looking so surreal ?

[Happenstance]

 

The caravan turned out well, I really like how the curtains look with the rest of the photo

[Goafer]

I've seen quite a few HDR pictures & they all seem too saturated, overblown or like a image from a video game. I like the concept of taking the 3 bracketed exposures & merging them but can you tone them down to make them look more natural but with the added detail of the bracketed exposures that would be missed with the usual 1 exposure or do they all come out looking so surreal ?

 

Yeah you can tone it down a bit. I just like the "holy hell, that's odd" surrealism of it all.

 

Here is some of mine that aren't as kerrazy:

 

 

[Gio001]

Yeah you can tone it down a bit. I just like the "holy hell, that's odd" surrealism of it all.

 

Here is some of mine that aren't as kerrazy:

 

 

 

Cool, might give it a go, my camera has bracketing so just need the software, thanks.

 

P.S i do like the odd Kerrazy one.

[Goafer]

My strobe light came today so I gave it a quick go with my slinky:

 

 

It's harder than I thought it would be to get a decent picture.

[Paj!]

I love the stairs the most in that picture.

[Goafer]

I tried to get a picture of my Dad golfing with the strobe light. Didn't work as well as I thought it would. This is the best of about 20 attempts. Even after that, it needed tidying up with levels/burn/dodge.

 

[Twozzok]

The goods:

 

 

 

I would really like this if the tree behind the dark green one was the same colour, and the trees on the right weren't a bit too over exposed

 

EDIT: HDR done right on a landscape can make it seem very dreamy.

[Goafer]

I would really like this if the tree behind the dark green one was the same colour, and the trees on the right weren't a bit too over exposed

 

Yeah, that one was the first ever attempt. I may go back and get a better picture since I really like that picture apart from the over exposure.

[Twozzok]

Hooray for photography, shoot ~100 shots, maybe 10 are keepers

 

Some choice pics from this afternoon, rest in flickr link below.

 

If this was focused properly it'd be amazing

 

same flower

 

my personal fave

 

Probably the most in focus shot.

 

 

The rest are here (clicksies).

[Retro_Link]

I really like the second one. I like the composition and arrangement of colour and focus in it.

[Goafer]

Went to Oxford and Avon Dassett hill park thing today:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Retro_Link]

Some great photo's in there man!

 

Love the brass globe!

 

What lens/technique was used to create the last one?... I've seen it done before but never looked into it.

[Goafer]

What lens/technique was used to create the last one?... I've seen it done before but never looked into it.

 

I took pictures in all directions using my tripod so that the height stayed the same, patched it together to make a 360 panorama in Photoshop (photomerge), then used polar coordinates (filter, distort, polar coordinates) to make it into a globe. I had to flip the panorama upside down before using polar coordinates as it would have had the sky in the middle and the ground round it. Also had to give it a big tidy up once it had been put together.

 

Here is the panorama, which was made up of about 6 or 7 photos IIRC:

 

[Retro_Link]

Ah right cool, thanks!