Black and White

[mlbagley0712]

I am just getting into photography so any helpful tips, suggestions and critiques welcome. I love black and white photography, what do you think of this pic, what could make it better..thanks






nikon d40
f/5.0
iso-400
130.0mm
1/60's

[ChrisAdval]

Originally Posted by mlbagley0712

I am just getting into photography so any helpful tips, suggestions and critiques welcome. I love black and white photography, what do you think of this pic, what could make it better..thanks






nikon d40
f/5.0
iso-400
130.0mm
1/60's

I'm not experienced in kid photography nor have any interests in it, but the gimmicky post processing is made and designed for the ones who are too into playing around with the post processing. What is your goal for a post processed photo? realistic or unrealistic? my style is always realistic, so the photo is way out there and not in my own style. If you want the more realistic type of photo never selective color a specific object such as the subjects eyes in the photo. For my own style, I really don't like cropping arms, fingers, limbs, etc.. the subject's arm goes out of frame and then comes back into frame, it can be very annoying to a certain demographic such as myself. As for a border if I would to ever have one it would be as plain and simple as possible, nothing special unless its a physical border on a print/frame.

[The rebel]

I actually like the whole picture, The eyes really pop in the picture. I really think the focus should be more specific on the character in the photo. Maybe create a focal point blur the background more.

[graciousness]

Few points:

1) The photo is way underexposed. If you don't have flash (external flash preferably) then I would have used a higher ISO to get more ambient light in;

2) As Chris mentioned, that framing is not doing anything for the photo;

3) Selective colour is a personal preference that you will find most people dislike. I'm one of them and it just doesn't look appealing. I don't see anything positive about the use of selective colour here or in most photos;

4) The black and white conversion is not good and this is due to the underexposure.

5) The chair she is sitting on has blown out areas that is glaring at you especially since the rest of the photo is underexposed. Remember that our eyes are drawn to the brightest areas in a photograph and my eyes keep going to that spot.

If you have done post production on this, I would increase exposure on this and bring this back to colour. Children benefit more from colourful photos however, if you really must use black and white, you need to make sure that blacks are blacks and whites are whites and that the whole photo just doesn't look flat and gray.

Cheers and I hope this helps,

Grace

[mlbagley0712]

ok like i said i am new so sorry if this is a very ridiculous question but when you say this is way underexposed are you saying the child should be lighter in the picture... when i increase the exposure she becomes much brighter. thanks sorry for the very amateur question but this is a great way to learn

[graciousness]

Don't apologise, better to ask even if you think it is silly because this is all about learning!

Yes, exposure on her meaning more light on her.

You can increase exposure on her in editing, but then you'll find that the photo will get grainier (noisier). This really needed to be properly lit while the photo was being taken with the use of flash.

Go ahead and try to increase the exposure with whatever editing software you use and see how you like it. There are actually better ways to do this with the use of curves and levels adjustment, but then this will all just be a bit too much for you to get into right now.

See what you can do with making her lighter and post it here

[mlbagley0712]

i increased the exposure and blurred the background a little and tried to darken the areas that were too bright but shouldnt have. I personally like the color in her eyes so i kept that....but is that better

[graciousness]

Well, I was more of thinking along the lines like the attached -- I hope you don't mind I had a quick play with it.

- I played with the curves adjustment and levels to bring up exposure;
- Tried to play with highlights to dull out the brightness on the chair, but didn't quite work so left it as is. Figured since the brightness is near her face, it draws enough attention close to her face so left it;
- If you will notice, the conversion is now a little bit more 'black-blue' so that your selective colouring isn't so contrasted with just pure blacks. I did this by using selective coour - chose black - then played with the cyans and blues adjustment till you get what you want.

Anyhoo, I think it's just a little bit better as the adjustments complement your selective colour choice a little and brightened her face a little.

Keep playing with the edit as you please and I hope you have the raw file so that you can adjust it better.

Cheers,

Grace

P.S. I can remove the edit version I did if you want.

[mlbagley0712]

thanks! I see what you mean. I will keep trying. There is so much to learn about photography and editing, I am taking a class in January so I will definetly learn more. Thanks for your help