Postprocessing to improve this (boring)? picture

[S_Sanyal]

Hi all, made this picture a little while back and I generally like the way its exposed (lighting of a rainy day; colour balance etc. etc. most technical aspects).



D90 w 18-200mm Lens
Exposure 0.033 sec (1/30); Aperture f/5.3; Focal Length 112 mm; ISO Speed 200

Somehow, something here can be improved more than basic technique and composition about which I generally dont have any questions..( Composition wise I dont like the vertical bar on the right, but I'd rather have it and also have the front-wheel)

I am tempted to play with it a bit;

so I'm posting to get any ideas, ANYTHING at all possible to IMPROVE this otherwise pretty sitting image of a lazing guy on a rickshaw but somehow I feel its boring...and needs some smack, impact , something...!!!

Any comments, suggestions, ideas, critiques, edit and posts are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

[dave.turley]

Hi,
It's a great subject, but I see what you mean. It looks a little under-exposed maybe? Did you shoot in raw? You could apply a gentle HDR treatment to it to gather small detail.
Dave

[mitchcook]

Agreed on the HDR. If this could be adjusted for a bit of an HDR effect it would be improved upon.

[edbayani]

the exposure looks good on my monitor. the picture looks good.
i don't know if it will have a great impact if you remove the vertical post at the right but it can be done easily. it will improve it a bit
select the post a little bit wider and move the selection to the left which is the steel shutter door and put it in another layer.
move this layer to cover the post and adjust with dodge and burn. flatten image. do this with the wheel and use layer mask to fit the selected flooring inside the wheel and merge. with 1 pixel brush, brush the wheel spokes back in.
here's a sample.

[RichardTaylor]

The exposure looks ok on my monitor.
The only thing I would do is clone out that bright piece of metal on the right hand side as it leads my eye right out of the photograph.

[S_Sanyal]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. So what I gather is:
1. Increase exposure to reveal more detail (within boundaries to not lose the feel of rainy-day)
2.Burning the bright surface on the right so that it doesnt detract much from the main subject
3. cloning out the pole

edbayani, great edit! I dont know how I would have done this, was terrified because of the wheelspokes...I will have a go at it when i gather the courage and follow your very instructions faithfully. Thanks everyone once again.

[Photographycampus]

Just as an out of the square thought...try the colour by 50% - but keep the reds at 100%. desaturating. I'll admit I'm not sure if it will work but it may look pretty cool!

[Niresangwa]

Why would you apply HDR to this, when there isn't imho, sufficient native range to justify it? It's slapping 'HDR' effects onto images as an afterthought that lead to it's poor reputation. Just my opinion, obviously.

I think that the 'distractions' such as they are (debatable) are kind of like a loose thread... remove one, then you find another to remove and another and another... in the spirit of street photography, I think it's a disservice to do this.

I like this shot, and I like the subject's apparent ambivalence to the camera. Like most candid street photography, I think you'd benefit from applying a bright, high contrast black and white conversion. Maintain as much fine detail as you can.

I'd also be tempted to look at an alternative crop if your resolution on the original can bear it, using the steel shutter behind him as a frame. Yes, you'd lose some of the rickshaw, but then again keep enough to know what it is, and manage to keep the whole subject in frame.

Overall, an interesting image!.. even is he's not too interested in you

[S_Sanyal]

Hey there, thanks everyone, this receieved quite some feedback! That I didnt expect, as I thought it was boring In the end, all things considered, I went with what Niresangwa says, and went well, low-tech! keeping the authenticity of spirit paramount; its more in line with what I may have done . I didnt want to crop it, the crop wasnt working too well;

Somehow making it monochrome also took away attention in this case from some of the distractions, which as richard taylor rightly mentions are a bit bright, i toned them a bit. All in all, I just added some grain keeping with the mood of the picture, to finally leave it feeling a bit rugged and 3dimensional! here's the result, let me know if this improves what was originally posted. Thanks.S

[Eileen D]

I definitely prefer the monochrome version. The figure is much more the focus here, without the competing colorful elements of the original. The lines of the bike and the spokes are also more effective in the second one. I do agree with the previous comment that the metal element on the right draws the eye out of the image. Can you burn it a bit to make it closer to the tone of the background?