My Daughter With Santa

[im_justa_bill]

I really like this photo in that it captures a moment in which my daughter is asking Santa for all the things she wants for Christmas. I especially like the eye contact between them. The blinds on the right are distracting but I cropped as much as I could without cutting off my Daughter's hair. I also don't think the image is sharp and was wondering if someone could share the best way to fix this in photoshop elements 10. There is an "auto sharpen", an "unsharp mask" and an "adjust sharpness" option. I played with these but they seem to make the image worse (grainy). Any ideas for how to improve this image would be greatly appreciated. I'd like to print it and frame it. Thank you.

EXIF Data
Nikon D50
50mm at f1.4
1/250"
ISO 800

[Bobz221]

Very nice.

[ShannonSky]

It's a very cute image, I love that the angle is from the side vs straight on (wish I'd thought of that for my girls' Santa pics!). I'd imagine the reason it's not tack sharp is because your f-stop is so low. Assuming you were 10ft away and this is just a crop, your DoF is only 4in. At that low a DoF, it's going to be nearly impossible to get all of both faces in focus, especially since they are at an angle and not parallel to the camera. In terms of what to do next time, definitely up the f-stop and lower the ISO if you can, but you'll have to find more light for this (or use an external flash). Not sure how much control you had over the situation, but if you could have positioned Santa and the tree in front of the window, and you in between, that would have helped. Also, the reason you're getting noise in the photo when you sharpen is b/c your ISO is on the high side.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's much you can do about it...maybe run the photo through a noise reduction program? Hopefully others can chime in on this. In the meantime, here's a calculator for determining DoF that I found useful: Online Depth of Field Calculator

[im_justa_bill]

Thanks for the feedback, ShannonSky. I didn't have any say in where Santa was placed relative to the window. The light was pretty dim so I opened the aperature. I ended up with a fast enough shutter that I could have reduced the ISO or increased the f-stop. I'm pretty new to DSLRs and have a hard time thinking of everything when there is a photo opportunity in front of me. I just start shooting.

I was hoping to fix some of these mistakes in post processing but not having much luck with the sharpening tool. I'm not sure if that's becuase I don't know how to use it yet or, like you say, my ISO was too high.

I'm getting better but still have a lot of practicing to do. Thanks again for your time and comments.

[jnoll]

Originally Posted by im_justa_bill

I really like this photo in that it captures a moment in which my daughter is asking Santa for all the things she wants for Christmas. I especially like the eye contact between them. The blinds on the right are distracting but I cropped as much as I could without cutting off my Daughter's hair. I also don't think the image is sharp and was wondering if someone could share the best way to fix this in photoshop elements 10. There is an "auto sharpen", an "unsharp mask" and an "adjust sharpness" option. I played with these but they seem to make the image worse (grainy). Any ideas for how to improve this image would be greatly appreciated. I'd like to print it and frame it. Thank you.

EXIF Data
Nikon D50
50mm at f1.4
1/250"
ISO 800

It doesn't look sharp to me.DOF to shallow.