Cow in a field with a stone wall

[Daniel765]

Took this shot while out on a drive. I was wondering about the composition as well as the cropping? Should I have zoomed in on the cow more? I like the wall as well as the old foundation in the background. The cow has a really interesting look to its eyes. I resized, cropped and upped the saturation as well as auto fix at photobucket. Any other comments? OK to re-edit and repost my shots on dps.



Shutter 1/250
Aperture f/5.0
Focal length 36.51mm
IOS 80
no flash

Original
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f1...IMG_0493_3.jpg

[karen_s]

He's a cool looking cow and I love that setting.

Overall I think the composition works pretty well. I like how you framed him up inside his interesting setting. However, I might try to put the cow a little more to the upper left to get him closer to the upper left third. The focal point (his head and cool looking eyes) are so close to the center of the image that the my eye kinda gets trapped and forgets to look at the rest of the picture. It's still pretty nice as is though.

As far as the saturation, it looks a bit overdone. I would back off a smidge. While most of the image is ok, the greens stand out too much and don't look very natural. (Or, maybe you just have really green grass where you live ;-) Anyway, I tend to shy away from the saturation sliders in software and instead up the blacks, adjust levels, and edit colors separately. Saturation is usually the last slider I use and only if I can't get there with anything else. You may not have those options with what you are using but if you do, experiment. If you don't, just take it easy with the saturation slider and keep an eye on the greens as they can get overdone fast.

And I really like that you seemed to make eye contact with him. That is a big plus in animal pictures.

[Eileen D]

I agree with what you are suggesting in your comment, that the cow is the focus and the walls are an appealing part of the scene. Cropping would help eliminate the distracting trees in the background. Also the color may be a bit too saturated so consider a slightly less intense version. You have caught a great New England scene here!

[tingeliM]

Personally, I would crop this into a square. Everything on the right from the cow looks unnecessary.



Something like that.

[Daniel765]

I only have the editing software that came with my computer so I thought I would give photobucket a try. I see what you mean though. I will keep that in mind next time thanks for taking the time to look at my photo.

Daniel

[Daniel765]

I just started shooting and really thinking about the shoot composition. Thanks for the feed back.

Daniel

[karen_s]

I highly recommend "The Photographer's Eye" by Michael Freeman for learning about composition in photography. I bought the book last year and read every word. I still use it as a resource. You could probably find a lot online too by just googling "the rule of thirds" or "composition in photography".

Your shot was very good compositionally considering you are just getting into the hobby. I could tell you put a bit of thought into it and that is key.

Oh, if you are a Windows user, you might look into a program called "Gimp". It's editing software similar to Adobe's Photoshop but I believe it's free. I'm a mac user myself so I have never used it but many Windows users swear by it.

[tingeliM]

Originally Posted by Daniel765

I only have the editing software that came with my computer so I thought I would give photobucket a try. I see what you mean though. I will keep that in mind next time thanks for taking the time to look at my photo.

Daniel

I recommend GIMP also, but only eventually. It's very intimidating for a beginner.
Try Google's Picasa. It's very simple and you can do the basic things easily (such as cropping, black and white conversion, sharpening etc).

[Daniel765]

Originally Posted by karen_s

I highly recommend "The Photographer's Eye" by Michael Freeman for learning about composition in photography. I bought the book last year and read every word. I still use it as a resource. You could probably find a lot online too by just googling "the rule of thirds" or "composition in photography".

Your shot was very good compositionally considering you are just getting into the hobby. I could tell you put a bit of thought into it and that is key.

Oh, if you are a Windows user, you might look into a program called "Gimp". It's editing software similar to Adobe's Photoshop but I believe it's free. I'm a mac user myself so I have never used it but many Windows users swear by it.

I have a Mac I looked at Aperture but the price is high and I have only just started so I thought I would put it off a little. I just use iphoto right now. Any tips?

[karen_s]

If you haven't already tried it, check out Canons free software called Digital Photo Professional (DPP) that comes with your camera. (If you didn't get it on a CD with your camera, you should be able to download it from their site.) I used it for a short time until I bought Adobe's Lightroom. Here's a page about it with some video tutorials that should give you an idea of what you can do ...

Canon Digital Learning Center - Digital Photo Professional (v3.8): Tutorial Videos

Another option might be Adobe Photoshop Elements. It's not free but I think you can find it for just under $100 U.S. I have an older version (PE4) but the newer (PE9) looks like a bit of a cross between Lightroom and Photoshop but is designed for the general consumer market. I think you can download a trial version for free to see if you like it. Here's a link to PE9 at Adobe ...

edit photos, photo editing software program | Adobe Photoshop Elements 9

I've not used many online freebies so hopefully another DPSr can chime in with some other options.

And I agree that Photoshop (and I am assuming Gimp) are a bit intimidating at first. I've used Photoshop since day one and still don't know even half of what it can do. I use it at work but PE (along with Lightroom) suit me fine at home.