Your Canon Photos Suggestions For Improvement (everyone encouraged to respond)

I never really thought of this as a Comments and Crticisms Forum.

I always thought of it as a collegial photo sharing forum just for the sheer joy of it.

Steve Thomas

Dan,

Yes, Steve and I previously were talking about the white balance on cloudy days from SOOC JPEGs. When I used AWB on cloudy days, I had more of a bluish tone. AWB seems to work really well for me on other tough lighting conditions like when shooting indoors for example. But in cloudy weather, AWB for SOOC JPEGs were not good enough. I'm so glad that Steve mentioned that to me.

Steve,

That's correct. Our show-your-picture efforts had less to do with criticisms and more about sharing, learning and sometimes discussions about the things that were photographed etc.

OK...I thought it about it some more. The time to post the weekly thread will be any time on Monday (PST). But I'll try to start this early rather than later...about 9 am. That way, it should be in time for those that live in Europe. In other words, early in the morning Oregon time should be late afternoon/early evening in Europe (if I understand this correctly).

Steve,

I love the term "collegial" that you used. How about the title of the thread be called the "Collegial Photo Sharing, Any Brand" followed by the date of when it is started? I already have some instructions developed to get us started. We can modify that later.

Synonyms for collegial are friendly, amicable, cordial and neighborly. It's like we are all in this together to help each other. Any other ideas?

Sony image 😁
i did a shoot last weekend for a clothing company, it was for a mothers day special. but this image looked better when i cloned out the mother, lighting was natural, but it was getting late in the afternoon and iso was up a bit. still a good arty image just the same.

Dig,

You could call it Collegial Photo Sharing Week (or Month, or whatever) any Brand.

Steve

Don,

It is a good image. You caught a great moment with the child holding the hood with both hands. That's great.

Steve,

Thanks. That sounds great.

the daughter was just playing around waiting for her mother and the pose just came out of no where. so i just needed to get the eyes just in shadow ,which took lots of takes as they were getting tired arms.

here is the original shot.

Don,

OK...I see. That's interesting to see how difficult it must have been to get that just right with the eyes just in the shadow. Yes, the arms must have been tired. That takes patience to get it just right. How many times have we photographers asked our subjects, "can I take one more photo"? 😀

Don,

For what it's worth, I think your original, mother/daughter shot is a cute shot.

Steve Thomas

its a good shot, but the mother didnt like it, mind you she was very picky and even asked me if i could make her look not so tired in one of the images 🤔i wonder if AI can do that. 🤨because i told her i couldnt.

tell me what you think is wrong with this image , the daughter picked it up before i posted them to the client 😁

Don,

Before I respond to what is wrong with the image, I wanted you to know that I like it. She is pretty and yes looks a little tired. Her gaze makes us wonder what she is thinking. There is that good contrast between the woman who is pretty and the graffiti that is not.

OK...what's wrong with it? I noticed what looked like the F-word on the left side.

Don,

Because of the lighting, and this particular woman's hair coloring, there is a strand of her hair on the left hand side of her head that blends into the graffiti on the bottom right hand corner. It almost looks like the graffiti has been spray painted right over her hair.

I'm like Dig though. Aside from the graffiti, she's a pretty woman in a nice pensive mode.

Steve Thomas

yes the graffiti, i was that pushed for time to get the images processed i didnt even look at the background, 5 images had to be cloned ,which was a pain.

Content-aware fill might have been a bit quicker than cloning but the quickest and easiest way for me is to just paint onto additional layers to change the f$@# to an abstract meaningless tag.

This took about 60secs.

You don't need AI to make her look less tired. The facial features adjustments in PSE (and I suppose Ps) are quick and easy to use.

here are mate this is the image. see what you can do, im useless at manipulating images.

You're the one going around claiming you are a professional photographer and based on my experience over the years these basic edits are a skill a competent professional photographer has.

If you are too lazy or have no interest or time to learn some basic skills in manipulating images that's fine but I certainly then don't have time to waste doing them for you, at least not for free 😁

I've shown it can be done without AI; the rest is up to you.

While you're at it, a useful homework excercize would be to remove the "rabbit ears" coming out of her head in the background.

😂🤣😂 i will never look at the image again without seeing the rabbit ears ,the client didnt even pick up on that one 😀

As I said, the rest is up to you.

It looks ok to me but it doesn't matter.

It was a quick edit to show you don't need AI in reply to Don's question.

You can adjust the facial features how you like until you get what you need.

First, I'm no pro so take anything I say with a pinch (or three) of salt! 😁

I can see the mum's point of view. I assume these are to sell the clothing? So flatter the model and flatter the clothes.

I'm not really sure that urban/gritty with it's connotation of gangs really fits with "family" or the target market? Outdoor/sports possibly? Also I don't find the poses that flattering to the model or the clothes, the squat does nothing for the thighs/hips/abs of the model and hides most of the clothes. From the other shots you've posted she looks far better, (and younger), when you shoot from her eye level or above, not below the chin.

With the edits, forget AI or algorithmic auto tools. There's a simple way of creating a couple of layers that you can then paint, or paint a mask, with a soft and light opaque brush by hand with a pen tablet. You can easily soften features and enhance structure quite subtly by this method, (it lightens or shades usually using a brush at around 6% opacity). Forgotten exactly how to set it up, but I picked it up off a web tutorial and it seemed a common and established process.

Oh, and the word on the truck...