First mommy and baby session

[ahorne]

(Let me know if that doesn't work, I've never used a link in the post before, and if its too big, lemme know how to fix it)

Camera: Canon Rebel XS
Aperture f/ 2.something??
Focal Length 50 mm
ISO Speed Probably 100


One quick question....is there a way to get the EXIF data back if I imported & exported the image through Lightroom?

Now....I'd love some general feedback, but here are my two questions:

Does the over exposure on mom's forehead take away from the image and if it does, how do I fix it?

And I feel like the tattoo on her neck is really prominent. I can't decide if its great because it shows off her personality or if it detracts from the image, thoughts?

[chicagojohn]

Originally Posted by ahorne

Does the over exposure on mom's forehead take away from the image and if it does, how do I fix it? And I feel like the tattoo on her neck is really prominent. I can't decide if its great because it shows off her personality or if it detracts from the image, thoughts?

Your photograph technical details strike me as somewhat lackadaisically understated, while the signature superimposed upon it seems to me to be rather overstated. But notwithstanding this, taking your questions at face value, first, personally, I don't consider the tattoo a big problem.

You do seem to have blown out highlights in the areas you state. See if your camera has a histogram option. If a portion of the histogram is pushed up against the right side, the image may have clipped highlights. Your camera probably has a RAW capture mode. I'd suggest using that. The pixel receptors on your sensor are somewhat like buckets, and once they fill up, they're full. End of story. No more information. White.

In RAW mode, you have a deeper bucket, usually. Instead of 8 bits and 256 depth, you might have 12 bits and 4096 depth or even more. That would give you more flexibility in Photoshop or another proprietary computer program capable of turning your RAW image into a jpeg or tiff format. You would use the adjustments for "Exposure" to introduce more detail into the blown out areas. In raw mode, it may be better to underexpose slightly to insure the pixel buckets are less than full, and then use the "development" software to bring the exposure up to the desired level so as to retain highlights.

You could also use bracketing in jpeg mode, and many camers offer this as an automatic option with selectable levels in 1/3, 1/2, or 1 EV unit. You would then have three images to use in selecting where to start post-processing.

I think this image shows excellent composition skills and has a lot of potential. Thanks for sharing it.

[ahorne]

Originally Posted by chicagojohn

Your photograph technical details strike me as somewhat lackadaisically understated, while the signature superimposed upon it seems to me to be rather overstated.

Thanks for your thoughts!

what do you mean by "photograph technical details"?

And yeah, I know the watermark is huge, but I've already had issues with people stealing my images and I've only been doing this for 6ish months, so I'd rather it be too much than not enough. If it was something tiny in the corner someone could crop it out. If you've got some other suggestion for resolving the issue I'd love to know! I really hate having to use the watermark, but I dont know another way to get credit for my images if someone decides to say, post them in an album on their facebook page

[SwissJon]

OK.. Well the Canon Rebel XS is a pretty good DSLR.. It's got a histogram option and appears to allow AE bracketing between -2 to +2 in 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps (That sounds pretty good!) Although I wouldn't use bracketing in this photo.. The contrast here is what makes this such a lovely photo. I think you could probably just have set the photograph to underexpose and then boosted the midrange after.

And yes, the camera has RAW+JPEG mode, the RAW mode is 12bit. Canon also had 14bit RAW mode, but not on this model.

To answer your queries.

Lightroom doesn't alter EXIF data.. If you have the original you should be able to view that data on the right hand side of the screen in Lightroom on the "Library" page.

Personally I like the blown out shine.. Probably a bit to large, but in black and white it's not such a big deal, it adds mood to the picture, this is a lovely sunny photo, one of pure love, and the shine is the only clue to the sun.. It brings the picture up. (Without it, exactly the same picture could be made to look really sad, like she was kissing the baby goodbye.)

The tattoo is part of her. Cloning it out will take away a bit of that.. If you took this photo for her, leave it otherwise she'll wonder why and possibly take it as an insult.. Removal of body art (and yes, I am tattoo'd) needs to be purely at the request of the person wearing it unless you are considering selling the photo for comercial purposes, in which case she'll probably understand.. Imagine you went to a photo session and came back and the photographer said "I didn't like your wedding ring so I cloned it out".. It's not really your descision. The person who will appreciate this photo the most is her, leave her whole, she knows she's got a tattoo

I understand your frustration at wanting to be recognised for your work.. Suggest you reduce the opacity of your moniker a bit more.. You only need to have it barely visible to prevent people copying.

[SwissJon]

Oh.. By the way, you might like to know that www.amandahorne.co.uk and amandahorne.us are both available. (Along with a few other domains with your name) wouldn't it be nicer to have your own domain name rather than "blogspot.com" if you're advertising yourself in this way. You can always redirect www.amandahorne.co.uk to your blogspot page fairly easily and it'll cost you about $7 a year. (Domain Names ? Domain Name Registration ? Management ? Appraisals - Moniker SnapNames) I don't work for them and I'm not trying to sell you anything, it just appears a shame to leave it if you have the opportunity to personalise further.

[ahorne]

Thanks SwissJon!

I kind of thought the sun was good to, and actually I went back this morning and tried to adjust for the shine, but it really did take away some of the "mood" of the image. Like you said, a little smaller might be better, but over-all I think it works. Of course, I'm biased

Do you ever use a watermark? I'm wondering if maybe I need separate ones for B&W vs color. Sometimes its barely visible at all, and others (like this one) it's very prominent. And is there a way to change the opacity in lightroom or do I have to go re-make one in gimp? (I dont have photoshop).

Thanks for the heads-up about the domain thing! I had thought about it, but thought it would be atleast $10/month, and right now I'm not making that much from my photography, and I'm a broke, married, college student. So I was thinking we couldn't afford it, but if its only going to be 7/year, I'll talk to the hubs tonight!

[SwissJon]

Good for you.. I'll put up a step by step through Monikers menus if you get stuck, other people might need it too.. If you can figure it out, what you want is to set the WWW to CNAME to your blogspot URL.. If that makes as much sense as dutch does to me, I'll explain further on another thread. I don't work or make any money from Moniker, but I've been using them for years without any problems at all.. they're cheap and efficient.

I've just increase the size of my watermark because of this conversation, but it's possible to put more than one flickr stream up in published services in Lightroom 3 (Or to any of the other published services) and have different watermarks for each. If you right click on the word "Flickr" and select "Edit" that brings you to the Lightroom Pulishing Manager. Click on the word "Add" and add a second Flickr Stream (Call it "Flickr Light Watermark" for example) And click OK. This opens a window that is initially a duplicate of the other Flickr. (You will need to authorise it again though)

Now scroll down to "Watermarking" and drop the dropdown box and select "Edit watermarks" In the new window that opened, set your watermark up as you want it.. About half way down the menu on the left, just under "Watermark Effects" is where you set the opacity. BEFORE YOU CLICK SAVE DO THIS NEXT BIT. At the top, just above the picture is a drop down.. It will have the name of the original watermark you opened, and the word "(Edited") If you click Save now, it will overwrite your old watermark settings. If you dropdown this little box and select "Save current settings as new preset" you will be able to name this setting as something useful (like "Low opacity") and then click "Done". Go ahead and finish setting this up as you want, for picture sizes etc. (You'll notice "Low Opacity" is now selected in the "Watermark" section) and then click save.

Now you'll notice you have two "Flickr's" under "Publish Services.. One of them marked "Flickr Light Watermark" or whatever you named it at the start above. You can publish to both of these. and notice the difference.. Lightroom doesn't know these are both going to the same place, so don't forget to delete out of the original when you publish to this one.

By the way, if you change the watermark to you publish service, lightroom will ask if you want to republish the pictures.. Which is lovely, unless you've made changes within Flickr, like the Title of the picture, in whaich case they get overwritten!

I'm going to put this in the "tutorials" Section too, because I think this is probably useful.

[SwissJon]

BIG NONO here.. DON'T SWAP PUBLISHING SERVICES LIKE I JUST DID, deleting them from one stream and adding them to the other.. It deletes all the photos on line and reposts them, so links to them no longer work and you lose all the comments people left on Flickr..

Grrr..

[SwissJon]

BIG NONO here.. DON'T SWAP PUBLISHING SERVICES LIKE I JUST DID, deleting them from one stream and adding them to the other.. It deletes all the photos on line and reposts them, so links to them no longer work and you lose all the comments people left on Flickr..

Grrr..

[LoveDSLR]

Originally Posted by ahorne

Does the over exposure on mom's forehead take away from the image and if it does

No. However, the viewers' eyes are drawn to the lightest parts of your photo first and return repeatedly. Is the back of the baby's head need to have that kind of attention?

Originally Posted by ahorne

And I feel like the tattoo on her neck is really prominent. I can't decide if its great because it shows off her personality or if it detracts from the image, thoughts?

As is.