Please help me make this better...or does it just stink?

[katieglenn]

All advice welcome!

[zona5101]

Hi and welcome!
I don't think it stinks at all. I actually like it quite a bit and I like the toning you applied. Compositionally I might try a crop on the left behind the head. that moves the lil one off center a bit more and give more a for the subject to look into. I'd keep the plate of chips. There is an unidentified object right above the plate of chips that is a bit unnecessary cloning it out would clean it up a bit. The frame is tilted and that looks ok to me, some might say straighten the horizon - your choice. i might also crop out that little bit from the edge of the door frame to the right. Super small tweeks really. nice shot.

[katieglenn]

Thank you so much for your input! I took your advice, at least I tried to. I cropped out the left, behind her head, and I leveled the horizon. I *tried* to remove the unidentified object (a kitchen counter), but failed miserably and it left with a smeary scar so I gave up on that. Also, I attempted to crop on the right but it cut off her elbows so I decided against that too. In any event, I hope this looks a little better! Thanks again for your comments.

[autofocus]

I just played with it a bit...here's what you can try.
1)Take your rectangular marquee tool and draw a rectangle over the area on the right side you want to remove.
2) Use your up arrow to move the rectangle up and just above the suspect area. Hit copy
3) drag the rectangle back down over the area and hit paste.
4) a layer was created, so hit flatten
5) finish off with some delicate cloning to blend in and remove any of the areas unwanted..done

[autofocus]

BTW, I agree with Bruce above..I also like the shot

[katieglenn]

Thank you for the instructions...these are probably for photoshop, right? I usually just use Capture NX but I do happen to have a trial version of Lightroom I can try. I kind of gave up on LR because it overwhelmed me - or maybe I just got lazy and gave up. But if I need to learn it, so be it.

And thank you, too, for your time and comments. I can tell you that I do like the photo, but after lurking around here for a few months it's sometimes hard to tell what is generally accepted as a decent photo, especially when you're new to it. Sometimes I'm surprised by what folks do and don't find pleasing. But I guess that's the nature of photography

[Naois]

Hi Katieglenn,

I don't think LR has the marquee tool, it has a clone and heal circle but I don't think it will help with this. If you're not ready to jump into Photoshop, you can try Elements, which is a bit easier to learn. You could also try GIMP, which is free, but has a steep learning curve.

I love the picture, the new crop made it even better!

[zona5101]

i like the new version!

[SusanH1970]

I love the crop! I'm admittedly not a huge fan of the toning, but that's subjective.

This has a photojournalistic quality to it that's been really popular with family photographers lately. Your clarity is excellent too. Well done!

[Niresangwa]

The counter was easily removed with the clone brush... I DL'd the original file from Flickr. The brush size i used was about 400px I think. Took about 10 seconds moving vertically down from above the errant counter top.