I took this shot of a friends baby sometime ago, but had a mess around last night, and this is what i came up with. Comments and criticism more than welcome. I'm aware its not perfect, and there are some points that could do with being cleaned up, but as this is probably just going to be a 6" by 4" print, they shouldn't matter.
My Advice? Go that extra mile and clean it up best you can, and get it printed 8x10. There's nothing like watching someone melt when you give them a beautiful picture
That would be great, any tips on how to clean it up? Its not the greatest of pics to start with tbh, it was take from about... 8' away from here, with the Cyber-Shot DSC-H9 and she was just sitting on the floor infront of the sofa . But anything tips on how to clean it up a little, even if it does mean starting again from the begining, to do a clean up to start with then re-do it. Ty in advance.
To be honest I'm not sure what needs cleaning up, you're the one that suggested it needed some The eyes, nose and mouth are nice and sharp, so Esme looks good. There does seem to be a bit of a mottled thing going on, though I'm not sure if that's to do with noise reduction in the camera or something you've done in post processing. I personally thing the pic looks great, and with the lots of megapixels supplied by your sony it should print lovely. Though some of the experts that loiter around here can probably supply some ideas on how to spruce it up a little?
I'd up the brightness just a bit. But really, that's all it needs. Babies are a notoriously difficult subject to shoot well (not to mention portraits), so this is excellent work.
As Nexxo suggested, it needs to be lightened. Right now the overall photo is a tad dark, but the eyes especially need some light. Post processing is always good, but this could have been fixed when you took the picture. Some fill flash would have provided much needed light in the face. If you don't have a flash (or don't want to use one), then you can use a reflector to bounce some light into those deep shadows. Even something as simple as a sheet of paper can provide a touch of light. Sometimes we rely on post-processing to clean up our images, but in truth the camera could have done the work for us. I know I'm guilty of that from time to time. I do love the pose, though. The body is positioned well, and the baby's expression is happy and inviting. The combination of wide-open eyes and that half grin just work well together. Starfighter mentioned that your camera's numerous megapixels would make a lovely print. This might be true in theory, but the print quality will depend a lot on the final resolution of the image. Just because the camera is capable of X number of megapixels doesn't mean that you're using every one of them. For a 4x6 print, I try to stay above 150 dpi. If I'm printing larger than that I try to stay around 300-350 dpi. Did you run this image through any filters in your image editing program? I notice a lot of blocking in the tonal range - there isn't a smooth transition from dark to light. -monkey
OK, here's my tweak (if I may): In Paint.net: - Adjustments --> Brightness / Contrast: Brightness 40; Contrast 5; - Effects --> Glow: Radius 6; Brightness -70; Contrast -47 Lightening the image really brought out the eyes --you can see the irises and pupils now. Unfortunately it blew out the clothes a bit, but that is not the focus of the image anyway. I could probably do some HDR tweaks with the Curves+ and Alpha Blur plug-ins, but I haven't quite got the hang of those yet... If you want to keep this image for reference, you may want to copy it now. Since this is a very personal picture I will delete it from my Photobucket album in five days.
I'd say that was too washed out now, Nexxo. Also I think any lightening needs to graduated so as not to blow out the highlights in the little one's clothing as has happened there.
thats looks a little freaky, don't know why but when i scrolled down it just took me off guard a little. I doubt thats the look your going for
I think Nexxo's second attempt is pretty good. The detail in the eyes instantly grabs my attention, which makes any other minor problem less obvious. -monkey
Don't cut off the blacks nearly as early as you have done (notice eyes and mouth how you suddenly have hard cut black areas). Otherwise much better than the first one.
See, now I preferred the first attempt Nexxo made but maybe my monitor settings are very similar as it really doesn't look washed out to me at all, a little bright perhaps, but I can still see detail in 95% of the areas that should have it. Trouble is editing a photo is really subjective and what may look good on one monitor doesn't always look good in print. I tend to find any new monitors that have the new TCO'03 colour space compliance thing look pretty bad terrible/overbright (I've had 3, a Samsung 226, LG 22" and a Hyundai, and ALL of them went back) and that TCO'99 (or what ever it is in the older DELL Ultrasharps) provide much nicer, warmer, lower gamma colours. If I was to say anything about the technical aspect of the shot however I would say that there has been far too much sharpening applied to the eyes and mouth (first and third versions) without bringing the rest of the shot in line. Also there is far too much shadow on the right hand side of the head in the first version which could be removed by bumping the brightness slightly. As I say though, it's all very subjective as to what would be "best" for the shot
Ty for all the help guys, i liked them both and i have had a little fiddle myself, im gonna try some other things and ill post back here when I have a finished product. Akava I agree completely with all thats said here, and the reason the shadow is heavy on the right is more because the sunlight was coming through the window on the right but after playing with the brightness etc, it loosk much better already, im gonna have another go at it, use a little less sharpening so early, and play around with it a little.
