I might consider selling my K20D, would depend actually on a few factors, among them price I would get would be one of them.

Bought on the 28th December from SRS, so still 18 months warranty left. Have got all the paperwork with it and 90% of the usage has been indoors attached to my 100mm Macro lens. 18000 Actuations on it. Make me an offer that I can't resist and I might consider it.

Its still in mint condition may I add

Danny, I am really interested in this issue, been to SRS on monday also and tried the DA*50-135 on the K7 there with Will and it was a heck faster than at least my K20.

What is your schedule like this afternoon Danny? Have you got your kit there or are you able to get it? I can pick it up for you on my way to you if its not with you and someone is home to give it to me.

Will txt you within the next couple of hours and we can see what we can work out

couldn't help cropping the image to have a look at it, kind of like this crop, but people have different tastes on how to crop the above image. You will be able to have a go at various crops from the original image

same procedure here




On this one I ended up smoothening the skin a little, the image is pretty sharp and I liked giving it a softer tone. I only did it on this resized image, the original A4 size I have for you is without any skin softening, so will leave it to your taste, if you want it softening you can always just do it. But I like this version.

Ted, here is what I did:

I created two layers

I pulled the shadow level 50% and the highlights to 50% on the first layer ((to bring the eyes out and make the shadow parts more visible)


Then as the original background was much nicer and darker than what it turned out when I pulled the shadow/highlight, and it became grainy with the 50% increase, I decided to bring back the original background. So used the eraser and removed all the green lighter background from around your son so that the original darker background popped up with just your son's image having the impact of the shadow/highlight effect.

Then merged all the visible layers.

Then went ahead to work on the eyes. Used the lasso tool to isolate both eyes and then sharpened 100%.

Then decided to work on parts of the arm and ear that have been overexposed. So I used the brush tool and picked up the colour from the part of the forearm which had nice skin tones and then went ahead and painted the burnt area with that tone, all over the arm, hand and fingers.

That completed the full image.

I was going to try to do something on the part of the face that the light has fallen more but after a few clonings decided agaisnt it. As it is doesn't look bad at all, in fact looks quite natural and I like it the way it is. Remember also that the less the image is manipulated the better it is for printing.

There you go, hope it helps,

By the way, this might not be the best way to do it, remember I am not exactly experienced like some of the members, I have my limitations but this is how it works for me. Am still learning with time. I am sure a few of them here might suggest you better ways of improving the image.

Amin

Ted, here is one from the original file.
I have the full size one that I will email it back to you. Its cropped perfectly for A4 size print, hope you like it.

Will look into the other ones later,

Ali
no, I dont mind at all you asking. Am quite happy to explain, there is nothing secretive in these shots besides lots of hours of, may I say frustrating moments, splashes all over the place, broken glass around and many more stuff that I dare not even say here to I not embarrass myself .

The thing is I don't stick with just one way of doing stuff, I will often in the middle of a successful run change and turn things and make use of straws to drip, eyedropper, water bag from above pierced with a needle, sometimes making even two or three holes and putting it an angle in such a way that the drops come through the seams rather than from the holes. I have raided the kitchen utensils so many times that I am closed to be made persona non grata in the kitchen because utensils keep disappearing and end up in the shed .

Two of the images above were with the bag hanging at a certain level, then there are others with the eyedropper. If you notice different backgrounds forced me to change angles and use other ways of making the drops fall, its all open to experimentation.

My best advice is have a go and have fun. If you are the kind to start feeling frustrated after two or three hours because you can't get a decent shot then it might not be for you. But if you are the type of person to keep hammering, day in day out until you tweak things and get it perfect then the results are great.
I kept on with this for at least three weeks, I am the kind of person that if you give me a fridge stocked with sandwiches, a few drinks and an air-conditioned shed I will happily lock myself in there for the whole day and even at night I will need to be dragged out , just love the idea of having all the tools etc and being able to play around with them all (note that this shed that I keep on calling is actually my workshop, I have tools and lots of equipment for my other work, so I have access to lots of power tools, carpentry stuff etc).

I bought my K20 end of December and I am approaching 20000 shutter actuations already, that probably says it all doesn't it?

If it took even ten seconds I would have noticed it. That would have been very unusual. Maximum 5 or 7 seconds, not even that actually and I get the site on, be it refreshed or after clearing the cache or inputting the string from scratch, I get it pretty fast

Got it, I see what you mean Richard.

But everytime I refresh the site I get only seconds of that time delay and the site comes up. Every single time I refresh it never takes longer than 5 seconds at most, if not just couple of seconds

I got timed out again