Getting ready for water play...

[Essy]

Exposure 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture f/2.8
Focal Length 7.5 mm
ISO Speed 80


I took this candid shot of my husband getting my daughter ready to go play in the water, and I really love it...but there are a couple of things that really bother me. I tried to fix it, but I'm hoping that you can help me do better. The first one is that I cut off his leg...lol (oops). Would another crop work better...or do I just have to live with it? Also the brown stain on the rock that he is sitting on really bothers me. I ended up desaturating the color from the photograph...but then I didn't want to miss out on her pretty pink water shoes...so I added some color back in in spots. Does it look tacky? The spot on the rock didn't quite disappear though. I use is the free picnik for post processing so I'm kind of limited on what I can do. Any suggestions?

Thanks

[Jamfke]

I'm not familiar with Picnik, but if it has a clone tool, you should be able to get rid of the stain fairly easily. If you need better editing software, and don't want to spend any money, GIMP is a pretty powerful option, but has a bit of a learning curve. Another, simpler, piece of software is PhotoFiltre. Not as robust, but easier to play with.

That said, I like the shot. Not much you can do about the amputated foot unless the original image still has it in frame. I wouldn't mind seeing more color overall, or if you want to, go completely black and white with selective coloring on the shoes alone.

[Essy]

how about this?

a leg up on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[Jamfke]

That looks good. If you can, maybe tweak the curves a bit to give it some contrast, and increase the saturation on the shoe to brighten it up a bit. The crop is a bit too tight on top, but the bottom looks much better.

[Essy]

Great...I'll try that. Thank you so much for walking me through this one...it was really bugging me. LOL.