Is my photo crappy? :( :)

[sonicbuffalo_RIP]

Re: Is crappy my photo ?

I was checking the colors and there's plenty of data. I tweaked the shot, added a bit of clarity and contrast and slightly s-curved the RGB channel. How much is a matter of preference but it directly affects the flatness.

View attachment 131885

View attachment 131884

What I also often do is use the gradient filter in LR to create some minor exposure difference between two parts of the shot and adjust both their WB to their opposite direction.

View attachment 131887

There's a thousand ways to tweak a shot.

I know it's not my shot, but I think J-see overtweaked the saturation, making it look unreal. Just my .02

 

[J-see]

Re: Is crappy my photo ?

I know it's not my shot, but I think J-see overtweaked the saturation, making it look unreal. Just my .02

I close to never touch saturation. S-curving and some slight vibrance makes it pop. It was 2 seconds of work to show flat can be fixed.

 

[gerfoto]

But wait can you open a jpg on LR ?

 

[sonicbuffalo_RIP]

Re: Is crappy my photo ?

I close to never touch saturation. S-curving and some slight vibrance makes it pop. It was 2 seconds of work to show flat can be fixed.

sorry J-see.....it just looks oversaturated.....maybe the result of S-curving. It "pops" too much for me. To each his own. I'm here to learn too.

 

[J-see]

Re: Is crappy my photo ?

sorry J-see.....it just looks oversaturated.....maybe the result of S-curving. It "pops" too much for me. To each his own. I'm here to learn too.

S-curving might make the differences pop too much. It probably requires more fine-tuning than the rough edit I did.

 

[J-see]

But wait can you open a jpg on LR ?

Yes, else only people shooting RAW could use LR.

 

[sonicbuffalo_RIP]

Re: Is crappy my photo ?

S-curving might make the differences pop too much. It probably requires more fine-tuning than the rough edit I did.

If I had to pick one of your minimal edits, I would take the first one. I could live with that one. It did 'pop' more, but the 2nd edit was a little too vivid.

 

[J-see]

Re: Is crappy my photo ?

If I had to pick one of your minimal edits, I would take the first one. I could live with that one. It did 'pop' more, but the 2nd edit was a little too vivid.

The second I put gradients on top. That might have been over the top.

 

[STM]

"Crappy" is always a very relative term. But to be more objective, I think the image could do without a fair amount of the foreground. The image looks very "busy" to me, your eye is searching for a subject. It may be personal preference but the saturation a little on the weak side.

 

[Woodyg3]

STM and BackDoorHippie have the same opinion as I do, there's too much going on in the picture. I think experimenting with some different crops could yield a very nice photo.

 

[SkvLTD]

Re: Is crappy my photo ?

Whites are still too blown out for my tastes. Makes the shot seem a bit over-exposed.

I was checking the colors and there's plenty of data. I tweaked the shot, added a bit of clarity and contrast and slightly s-curved the RGB channel. How much is a matter of preference but it directly affects the flatness.

View attachment 131885

View attachment 131884

What I also often do is use the gradient filter in LR to create some minor exposure difference between two parts of the shot and adjust both their WB to their opposite direction.

View attachment 131887

There's a thousand ways to tweak a shot.

But generally, OP, its not done and ready for eval until you fully edit it.

 

[Keen Ai]

I know exactly where these pics were shot in CO, as I've been there myself! Keep in mind what type of photography you are trying to advertise yourself with and what purpose those photos would serve to your clients. As an example -- with your second photo and the rushing water -- if you're trying to sell that to someone who is going to blow it up, frame it and stick it on their wall, you absolutely must use a tripod in that situation and get a sharp background. Hand-holding a pic like that with slow shutters to blur water will result in nothing more than snapshots for your own enjoyment and nostalgia. The market is over-saturated with beautiful waterfall shots that are, from a technical standpoint, vastly superior to yours due to their use of tripods, ND filters, thoughtful composition, etc. How blurry a pictures fine details are when zoomed in will affect how it looks when printed at various sizes on various media, so it goes back to my original statement... know the purpose of the picture and know what level of detail you need to get in the final pic.