Abby

Well, figured I'd throw my hat into the ring. This is a photo of my 2 1/2 yr old granddaughter at her dance class. Processed w/ Lightroom 4 and Silver Efex pro 2

D7000; Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G; ISO = 800, f-stop = 2, 1/200 sec

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This is one of the cutest photos I've seen in a long time and I would score it as an 11/12

It has almost every element of a merit image. The composition is especially excellent and you snapped the shutter at the perfect moment. The lines of her body, the way she is leaning forward, adds a beautiful flow to the photo. The depth of field is so superb and appropriate . . . and also adds environmental interest without detracting from the center of interest, your granddaughter. I also especially like the BW treatment . . . very appropriate and pleasing.

My only suggestion is that the catchlights in her eyes are not very visible (-1) and could benefit from a little bit of brightening.

Really beautiful work!

Thank you! You make a very good point. I'll play around with it some more and see if I can tease a little more out.

What a wonderful shot!

I'd give it a 11/12 too. I just find the crop a little tight to my taste. The eyes don't bother me as much as she seems caught it the frame. I would have given her just a tad more room all around.

Great expression and the choice of B&W makes it just about perfect.

I agree with you, Marcel. I struggled with the cropping for quite some time and the image I posted was one of several. Here is the full image w/o cropping. I can't quite decide whether or not to keep the arm in or to exclude it or to leave a portion of it in or to just leave it as is.

Any suggestions would be great!

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I can't quite decide whether or not to keep the arm in or to exclude it or to leave a portion of it in or to just leave it as is.

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In my opinion, the arm left in would be more of a distraction and the composition loses a lot of balance. The first post is the better one. It would have been nice to have a little more room around her backside so her tutu is more visible, but I think the photo as a whole was strong enough despite this.

I agree with Helene. I thought maybe you had a little more room around. The arm would be way over distracting. But I'd still change the proportions just to get the arm out and leave a little more room on top of her head.

But the shot is great, so I wonder why we fuss…

Silver Efex pro 2

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This is a little off the topic of your critique, but in your opinion is it worth the $ to get Silver Efex Pro? Or I guess I should ask, what advantages do you see over using Photoshop or the Lightroom presets?

I'm with Helene and Marcel, 11/12

Fantastic capture at the right moment.

-1 for composition, I would have liked to see a little space at the bottom and left.

Nice work, the B&W was an excellent choice!

ohkphoto said:

This is a little off the topic of your critique, but in your opinion is it worth the $ to get Silver Efex Pro? Or I guess I should ask, what advantages do you see over using Photoshop or the Lightroom presets?

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My answer is a unqualified YES to the entire Nik suite of plug-ins. The Silver Efex is certainly their headliner but the Viveza and Color Efex pro is also very useful. Although it might be theoretically possible to duplicate most of what Silver Efex does in Lightroom, it certainly won't be easy nor quick. The algorithms Nik uses combine beautifully with Lightroom's effects and so there's not a great deal of duplication. For me it's not so much the presets that I like about Silver Efex rather it's the additional flexibility of image manipulation. For instance, using the control points allows you to pick thru an image piece by piece to pull out detail in one section while numbing it out in another. And then you combine it with Lightroom and you're virtually unstoppable.

But don't just take my word for it, you can download the full working program for a 15-day free trial. Additionally, Nik has a HUGE library of on-line seminars where guest photographers give demonstrations of how they integrate the various suite products along with Lightroom and Photoshop into their work flow. I've learned a great deal just watching how they perfect what seemed like a perfect photo only to see how much nicer it looks when they're finished.

Here is the link to download the software - Nik Software, Inc. | Downloads