how's my edit?

[Aharami]

Playing with my first SLR - XSi + Tamron 17-50

This is the original. I didnt set the WB correctly and the colors looked too yellow and too saturated. So I decided to play with it in photoshop. After some playing around, I came up with this

So how did I do? What would you do differently?

Im still learning this camera, but Im loving it so far.

 

[imported_Irse]

Shoot RAW so you can adjust the WB easily.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Shoot raw, never worry about incorrect white balance again.

The edit itself is a bit too much for me personally, I'm not into artificial looking photographs. This is just a personal thing though.

 

[imported_Irse]

If you place the pic where others can download it and try to edit it, it may help.

 

[Deadtrees]

It looks a lot better.

One tip: If you don't want to use RAW, you can follow these steps for custom WB.
1. Set the camera in manual mode.
2. Give it long exposure. Something like 1 sec.
3. Using manual focus, make sure everything on the viewfinder is as blurry as possible.
4. Take a picture while Shaking the camera, pointing where there's the least color pattern.
5. Use that picture as your custom WB source.

Written down, it sounds quite complicated but it is not. Just give it a try.

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: Irse
If you place the pic where others can download it and try to edit it, it may help.

cant right click, save as?
or do you mean the non-resized original?

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: Deadtrees
It looks a lot better.

One tip: If you don't want to use RAW, you can follow these steps for custom WB.
1. Set the camera in manual mode.
2. Give it long exposure. Something like 1 sec.
3. Using manual focus, make sure everything on the viewfinder is as blurry as possible.
4. Take a picture while Shaking the camera, pointing where there's the least color pattern.
5. Use that picture as your custom WB source.

Written down, it sounds quite complicated but it is not. Just give it a try.

sounds simple enough. will give it a try

 

[imported_Irse]

Originally posted by: Aharami

Originally posted by: Irse
If you place the pic where others can download it and try to edit it, it may help.

cant right click, save as?
or do you mean the non-resized original?

For some reason I was right clicking on the link and not the picture itself :disgust:

Here is my quick edit
http://i8.photobucket.com/albu.../Misc/IMG_0145edit.jpg
I'm not good in Photoshop. But i CS4, I opened it up in Camera Raw and was able to change the tint a bit. Of course I don't know what the real color of the subject and background was so the accuracy may be questionable.

 

[Aharami]

nice

 

[corkyg]

And here is a simple color temperature adjustment using Corel PA6:

WB2

 

[Rufus12]

Here's something I did real quick in Aperture.
Text

 

[rivan]

What color is the wall? What color is her hair? What's her complexion (ghost white/white/tan/mediterranean)? The balance is so far off in your original it's hard to tell where to begin.

Your edit looks like you're shooting for a sepia-ish look. Do you want sepia or natural?

 

[xchangx]

quick edit in lightroom

http://farm4.static.flickr.com...55492_248380a5ea_o.jpg

 

[rivan]

This should look pretty good in Windows browsers and in PS. It'll probably look pretty blown out in Mac browsers.

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: rivan
What color is the wall? What color is her hair? What's her complexion (ghost white/white/tan/mediterranean)? The balance is so far off in your original it's hard to tell where to begin.

Your edit looks like you're shooting for a sepia-ish look. Do you want sepia or natural?

wall is a soft yellow. skin is tan. hair is dark brown with golden highlights. yea i was going for sort of a sepia-ish look but not totally black and white. In my edit I added a cooling photo filter, added a vignette, and desaturated the yellows a bit.

 

[soydios]

Originally posted by: rivan
This should look pretty good in Windows browsers and in PS. It'll probably look pretty blown out in Mac browsers.

that's the most natural looking, IMHO. but it appears that the OP's edit wasn't going for realism, which is also totally fine.

 

[PurdueRy]

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Sdiver2489/IMG_0145.jpg

My attempt going more for what I believe would be realistic. Difficult to know without personally knowing the colors that were there but I believe its fairly accurate.

 

[angry hampster]

Ehh you can't really see her eyes anyway. I wouldn't spend too much time on this particular image.

 

[Maximus96]

your focus seems off, the tamron should be sharper than that, did you misfocused?

lightroom can fix bad white balance easily, even if you shot a jpeg

an easy way to set custom white balance is just to place a white piece of paper, or napkin, or white t-shirt, at where you plan to shoot, make sure the center circle is within the white color, take a pic and use it to set white balance. no need to focus. it should get you close enough that you'll just need a minor tweak, if at all. no need for the whole long exposure, shake camera business.

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: angry hampster
Ehh you can't really see her eyes anyway. I wouldn't spend too much time on this particular image.

i was going for candid. i like this pic better than the ones where she's looking at the camera

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: Maximus96
your focus seems off, the tamron should be sharper than that, did you misfocused?

lightroom can fix bad white balance easily, even if you shot a jpeg

an easy way to set custom white balance is just to place a white piece of paper, or napkin, or white t-shirt, at where you plan to shoot, make sure the center circle is within the white color, take a pic and use it to set white balance. no need to focus. it should get you close enough that you'll just need a minor tweak, if at all. no need for the whole long exposure, shake camera business.

i set it to autofocus and i think i focused on glasses frames. this being my first SLR, and lens, I have nothing to judge it against for correct proper focusing. the lens does hunt a bit in anything but ideal light.

do i have a soft copy of the lens?

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: soydios

Originally posted by: rivan
This should look pretty good in Windows browsers and in PS. It'll probably look pretty blown out in Mac browsers.

that's the most natural looking, IMHO. but it appears that the OP's edit wasn't going for realism, which is also totally fine.

really? i think the colors are a bit off (not to say i dont like the edit). The sofa's made out of brown microfiber and it doesnt look brown in that edit.

I think Irse's edit is pretty natural looking
http://i8.photobucket.com/albu.../Misc/IMG_0145edit.jpg

 

[Maximus96]

Originally posted by: Aharami

Originally posted by: Maximus96
your focus seems off, the tamron should be sharper than that, did you misfocused?

lightroom can fix bad white balance easily, even if you shot a jpeg

an easy way to set custom white balance is just to place a white piece of paper, or napkin, or white t-shirt, at where you plan to shoot, make sure the center circle is within the white color, take a pic and use it to set white balance. no need to focus. it should get you close enough that you'll just need a minor tweak, if at all. no need for the whole long exposure, shake camera business.

i set it to autofocus and i think i focused on glasses frames. this being my first SLR, and lens, I have nothing to judge it against for correct proper focusing. the lens does hunt a bit in anything but ideal light.

do i have a soft copy of the lens?

use center point, focus on the eye, then recompose but make sure you don't recompose in such a manner that the eye is now a different distance from the camera than when you first focused on it (does that make sense?)

the tamron is loud and will hunt in low light, but should be sharper than what your picture shows. the center point is the most accurate in the XSi, or any other Rebels.