Mijn Kleine Broertje

Like the title say My Little Brother
I quite like this shot so I'm curious what you experts think about it and could help me to make a better one next time.
I've only used the light coming out of the window of his right.



Model: PENTAX K10D
Lens: D-FA 100/2.8 Macro
Shutter Speed: 1/160 second
F Number: F/2.8
Focal Length: 100 mm
ISO Speed: 400
special information for Amin
Working distance: ~3 or 4m
No cropping done to the image

I would crop a little bit off the top, and quite a bit off the bottom, maybe up to the elbow on the right, the 'dust' on the pillow is not a good feature.

Then 'clone' out what is left of the 'dust' and you have a very good portrait.


* these macro lenses pick up every flaw, dust being one of the major problems, along with wrinkles, spots, and other blemishes, ( plukes - to our Scottish friends )

* p.s. I'm not an expert, by-the-way

Lovely. Great light.

G

Thank you John and George for your comment

I know John but I'm a bit of a purist with photos, I only pixel edit when it concerns sensor or lens flaws like dust on the sensor or CA and things like that, everything else is done with layers over the whole image or using filters to select things. I do might crop though but only when needed.
Oh John, your photos on your site do look great though!

What do you all think about photoshoping, where do you draw the line?

I used to be a purist, but I'm ok now.

I'd 'Photoshop' my Granny for € 0.001 !!!

I used to dodge, burn, crop, tone, and 'spot' my B&W prints back in the 70's, now I use Photoshop for today's prints.

Anyone that takes pictures with todays DSLR's and doesn't use some sort of 'Photoshop' software to develop them, should buy a digital compact.

The DSLR is just a tool to record an image, the lens you choose helps you in this endeavour, a software tool like 'Photoshop' helps you 'develop' what you first intended.

The better your camera technique, and choice of lens, the less time you need to 'develop' the photograph in Photoshop. If my technique was perfect, think of the time and effort I could save, not to mention the money I could put into propping up the Scottish whisky industry.

I never show any photograph without it passing through Photoshop, it may just need a small crop, a lift in contrast, a bit of sharpening or a full-blown 4 hour session to sort out all my mistakes, but no one will see any picture of mine that doesn't show what I originally intended to capture.

This is my own way of working, and I'm glad that we are all different or the world would be a very boring place indeed, you have a terrific picture here, just 'spot' the dust and make it spectacular .

Great picture, Stefan.
But as galoot says: Crop the pillow away, up to the elbow on the right, and do some spotting. Than.....it would be perfect.

Martin.

Stefan

Love the picture and you managed to capture the expression in his eyes just at the right moment and the mouth expression to coincide with it, not too wide a smile nor a closed one. Gives that beautiful innocent expression of being just at the start of what he might be about to say something or perhaps about to feel shy and inhibited.

Nice photo, definitely a lens that I dont regret buying yesterday, courtesy of some of your beautiful butterfly macros, although haven't had the chance to snap many shots.

And I share the comments above, from an inexperienced rookie, so quite a limited view, but it gives me the impression that if the brown of the sofa goes then you are left with an extraordinary picture because then you are left with the dark background enhancing the image, and the dust on the sofa and the brown of it seems to ruin it a bit.

Regarding the expressions and capturing right at the moment, that takes a bit of luck to get. I have a couple of my little ones taken with my fuji compact so quality not as high but I really cherish those images.
Luck plays a huge part in getting them in those moments.

Would love to show them here but I prefer to ask your permission as this is your thread and I think its only polite to ask you first if you dont mind.

I wouldn't like to risk steering the topic of comments that you asked from viewers for your photograph above away from it.

Fantastic picture, you nailed it at the right moment as it seems.

I also would crop as suggested, alternatively at least on the left you might want to darken the quite bright arm and his shirt a bit.

As for post processing, I have no hesitation to use whatever it takes to get the picture to what I saw (or imagined) when pressing the shutter. I often use black or white gradient layers with layer mode soft light to darken/brighten areas of a photo. I also do use the gamma setting in SilkyPix a lot.

Then there are the shots with the fisheye zoom. They are often crying out loud for over the top post processing.

Prieni

Alright I will do some photoshoping on it and I will let you all know how it comes out
It's just that I think the empathie should be at taking the photo as pefrect as you can with your camera and only do some minor things on the pc. It just don't really seem right to take away the dust on the pillow here, it's how it is in realy life. If I crop the image the dust wouldn't be close to the third line so it would be less obvious.

Great to hear Amin you got the lens, you will like it
You can go ahead an post your photos here if you like but it might be better if you post your photos in another thread so that you also get some comment from other forum members. It doesn't mind they are from your fuji camera we will still love to see them

Better?


*Cropped
*Deleted dust
*missing one sharpen layer and no noise reduction since neat image doesn't work with CS4 (CS4 works wonderfull for the rest btw, this my first photo with it)
*use a very light darken layer to colour in the highlights but used a masked to exclude the eyes

Wonderful. Now start making money of it. Parents, uncles, aunty's, granny's etc....


Martin.

Better Stefan very nice
I understand your purist point and you should always get as perfect as possible 'in camera' but I agree with Galoot and just because you missed a few flecks of dust on the chair why let it spoil a good image?

Congratulations, a top shot, but I would make it a square crop. You haven't quite got there yet.
cheers
bb2