# How do i make my photos better



## ganafbbyx (Nov 10, 2015)

I really dont know if its te way i take the photos or how i dont knkw how to edit them. Please give me feed back in to what im not doing right. I want sharp deep in color photos! Heres photos i did on a one year old. 

Instagram photo by Morgana Kaled • Nov 9, 2015 at 6:01pm UTC


Thanks


----------



## 480sparky (Nov 10, 2015)

There's a giant letter N growing out of that poor kid's head!

You need some separation between the little tyke and the letter.


----------



## ganafbbyx (Nov 10, 2015)

Yes i was practicing on my son and i was alone lol bare with me. But idk i just want mu photos crisp! I need help with soemthing i just dont know what. 




Its nice to the people that see it. But when i see my photos. I feel as if something is missing! And idk what.


----------



## ganafbbyx (Nov 10, 2015)

I was looking at this one photographer and her photos are so beautiful! (Down below) LIKE WOWWWWWW! I want that wow in my photos !View attachment 111300

*Please don't post images to which you do not hold rights.  You may post a link.*


----------



## 480sparky (Nov 10, 2015)

'Crisp' can mean a lot of things.

The images you posted were taken with a longer lens, while yours seem to have a wide-angle appearance to them.

That said, I'm sure the mods will come along and remind you not to post photos that aren't yours.


----------



## tirediron (Nov 10, 2015)

480sparky said:


> 'Crisp' can mean a lot of things.
> 
> The images you posted were taken with a longer lens, while yours seem to have a wide-angle appearance to them.
> 
> That said, I'm sure the mods will come along and remind you not to post photos that aren't yours.


D'ya think?


----------



## ganafbbyx (Nov 10, 2015)

Sorry i havent been on this for years. And back then i was prob on it for a week. Still a newbie:/


----------



## ganafbbyx (Nov 10, 2015)

I guess il keep praticing. Its prob the way i edit. I just wish my photos had less of a bland look to them. I need boldness!


----------



## tirediron (Nov 10, 2015)

ganafbbyx said:


> Sorry i havent been on this for years. And back then i was prob on it for a week. Still a newbie:/


No harm, no foul.


----------



## 480sparky (Nov 10, 2015)

ganafbbyx said:


> I guess il keep praticing. Its prob the way i edit. I just wish my photos had less of a bland look to them. I need boldness!



I'd say editing isn't the issue.  You need more practice shooting.


----------



## AlanKlein (Nov 10, 2015)

What don't you like about the two pictures you posted?    My own preference, and remember that's only my preference, is that the first one might be better if the letter didn't touch his head and his feat were entirely in the picture.  I think the second would have been even cuter if he was interacting with the pumpkins rather them just laying there.  I think that interaction would make a more interesting picture because it would tell a story.  try to tell a story adds content to photos.  The first picture does that with the ONE.  But they are still nice shots.  Don't be so hard on yourself.


----------



## The_Traveler (Nov 11, 2015)

ganafbbyx said:


> I really dont know if its te way i take the photos or how i dont knkw how to edit them.



Photography takes skills, experience and knowledge and, in the three years since you posted last; while you may have been practicing,  it seems that you haven't been acquiring the actual knowledge to help you progress.
Without actual knowledge, you can't know what is wrong and then you can't fix things.

The larger picture is over-exposed and thus there is no detail in the whites; the white balance is too cold, portraits tend to be warmer.
The boy is posed against a busy background and the featureless sky rather than you moving around so that the barn fills the background.  With a wide angle lens that was used, the background is in focus and gets in the way.
The subject isn't looking at the camera and so there is no eye contact.
There are no embedded exif so we can't tell what aperture, shutter speed or focal length that were used.

other small issues
the thumbnail pictures is in png mode, which is typically used for graphics and is much larger than an equivalent sized jpg (that's why the picture is > a megabyte.)
both pictures are named 'image' thus it goes into our download folders as one of 30 or so files all named 'image'.


----------



## Dillard (Nov 11, 2015)

These would benefit largely if you had some separation from the child and the background. As the Traveler mentioned, the image with the pumpkins is fairly distracting because the background is in focus.


----------



## Designer (Nov 11, 2015)

ganafbbyx said:


> Yes i was practicing on my son and i was alone lol bare with me. But idk i just want mu photos crisp! I need help with soemthing i just dont know what. View attachment 111298
> 
> Its nice to the people that see it. But when i see my photos. I feel as if something is missing! And idk what.


This one with your son at the pumpkin farm is cute, and the opportunity had potential.  The background is not in focus as Dillard wrote above, but it is distracting.  I cannot read the EXIF for this shot, so I have to guess:

It looks as if the area of focus was on the pumpkins, not the boy.  It also looks as if the shutter speed was too slow (too long) so your subject's movement combined with your own movement has resulted in a slight blur. 

I will recommend that you watch the composition to make an interesting photo while not capturing distracting elements.  Use a somewhat faster shutter than you did here when photographing children.  Be sure the area of focus is on your subject. 

Overall, this photo is suffering due to the flat light of an overcast sky.  Someday you may want to investigate the use of flash (not on your camera, but to one side, for instance).


----------



## ganafbbyx (Nov 11, 2015)

Thanks for your comments everyone. Really appreciate it! Learned so much


----------



## charchri4 (Nov 12, 2015)

I think it depends on what you want.  That is a fantastic Facebook photo I would be proud to post.  He is adorable and should be shown off!  As a proper portrait in the living room not so much... 

At first glance my eye is drawn to the pumpkins in the foreground because they are so bright, so many and so busy.  Thus the first impression is not the very cute little boys face.  On closer look when I do get to the point of the shot there is a swing set coming out of his cheek and shed coming out of his other ear that is very distracting.  It also has the whites blown out and the shadows under his eyes are not flattering to him. 

Pulling the whites down, shadows up, blurring the back ground and a bit of a crop would go a long way to driving the focal point where you want it and make this a great shot IMO.  Oh and also IMO the watermark is not helping you in the completely unnecessary distractions department...


----------



## mrsblackfoto (Nov 12, 2015)

I'm no means a professional as I'm still a beginner but soemthings do stand out that could be worked on. The obvious one being the letter looks like it's touching his head. Another thing I see is his hands are sitting in a claw like stance. Maybe next time let him hold a leaf or something to distract his lil hands. It does look a little bright. One thing I learned from playing around with the dails is that even though my camera says it's not the proper settings for a good exposure, I shoot in a low exposure when using the flash esp outside, on the view finder my images look darker but when I upload them to light shop I have much more to work with and it turns out nice. I think they look crisp and the quality to me, is nice. I just think if you practiced different composition of the subject and objects in the shot you would see improvement. Good job overall though!


----------



## Peeb (Nov 12, 2015)

EDIT: incorporated Jim's crop suggestion as well, which I thought was a good one.


----------



## charchri4 (Nov 12, 2015)

I'm don't know how to blur the back ground or fix the blown out shirt with a jpg but just a simple crop focuses the photo where you want it to go.


----------



## snowbear (Nov 13, 2015)

Not the selective color - it pulls attention away from the child, implying the pumpkins are more important.


----------



## Peeb (Nov 13, 2015)

snowbear said:


> Not the selective color - it pulls attention away from the child, implying the pumpkins are more important.


Agree to disagree.  I found the exposure-blown sky to be a real bummer, and switching to straight b/w just wasn't doing it for me.  I liked the selective pumpkins and thought the kiddo was clearly not going to be ignored (he looks like a happy little handful!). You disagree- no worries.  Your point makes a lot of sense, but I still like the pumpkins.

PS- hate that disagree button.  Most of us take and even encourage C&C, but the big red X kinda yells "You stink" (which wasn't what you meant) rather than "I would have made a different choice there, friend" (which what you said in your well-reasoned post).


----------



## The_Traveler (Nov 13, 2015)

Peeb said:


> snowbear said:
> 
> 
> > Not the selective color - it pulls attention away from the child, implying the pumpkins are more important.
> ...



Selective color can be used to draw attention.
Why would the photographer want to draw attention to the pumpkins?
Selective color is rarely appropriate, attractive or useful.

Why not stop trying to beat this poor picture with edits to get something good out of it?
This picture has such real, disqualifying defects that no amount of PSing will make it a good representative of a photographers work.


----------



## charchri4 (Nov 13, 2015)

snowbear said:


> Why not stop trying to beat this poor picture with edits to get something good out of it?



I'm pretty sure folks were trying to help by showing her simple ways to improve it.  Mom is being a mom so she only sees her son.  My eye has less affection for the lad and was drawn to the massive building on taking up the right quarter of the shot...


----------



## The_Traveler (Nov 13, 2015)

and this......



Peeb said:


> There must be dozens of them, but I'll start:
> 
> B/W photos with selective colorization of one part only.  I've done this a million times (once recently), but I cringe every time I see a photo by someone else like this.
> 
> What do you look at and say "Oh no, not again!"???


----------



## Solarflare (Nov 13, 2015)

ganafbbyx said:


> I really dont know if its te way i take the photos or how i dont knkw how to edit them. Please give me feed back in to what im not doing right. I want sharp deep in color photos! Heres photos i did on a one year old.


 Well simply for better colors you can use:

(a) careful exposure (dont overexpose or underexpose the important parts, or you lose color information in either case; with digial especially severe in anything thats overexposed)

(b) better/larger sensor (specifically more color depth)

(c) last not least - better optics

Better colors is one of the reasons why I use a D750 and not just a point and shoot.


----------



## charchri4 (Nov 13, 2015)

+1 traveler^.  I'm not a fan of that either but if it was going to work at all it would have been to have the boy in color and the pumpkins in bw


----------



## The_Traveler (Nov 13, 2015)

charchri4 said:


> +1 traveler^.  I'm not a fan of that either but if it was going to work at all it would have been to have the boy in color and the pumpkins in bw



I was trying to say that, unless there is a reason that a substandard image needs to be rescued at any costs because there is no possibility of a reshoot, we should recognize when images really aren't good enough to keep, especially for someone who is or is going to be a professional.
Would this ever be an image that a pro would be on their website, even Facebook?

Respect the maker, tell them this one should be tossed.


----------



## charchri4 (Nov 13, 2015)

You kidding?  If my kid was that cute he'd be all over FB no matter how crappy the shot!


----------



## The_Traveler (Nov 13, 2015)

charchri4 said:


> You kidding?  If my kid was that cute he'd be all over FB no matter how crappy the shot!



Perhaps that's the point.
Why should we be caring about whether the 'kid is cute' and making a splash with one's friends on Facebook?
Isn't helping a photographer to get better at practicing a craft a better goal than making yet one more FB wonder?


----------



## Derrel (Nov 13, 2015)

If you "_want to get better_", the easiest way to do that is to buy an instructional manual that covers many dozen of the basic aspects of picture-making. In my opinion, the John Hedgecoe photography books are some of the best instructional manuals in photography. Hedgecoe was the first-ever full professor of photography at London's Royal College. His instruction is geared toward adults. His books have many,many,many small illustrations and diagrams that illustrate each teaching point. There have been very few books that are done with an many illustrations and diagrams as his many books.

One problem with learning from YouTube videos or the web sites and blogs is that the "teaching"  found in those formats is often scattershot, half-baked, and in many cases, just flat-out lousy. Learning from a book designed by an accomplished instructor and author means that your course is layed out for you, in a book, with a chapter list, and an index, and over 1,000 illustrations with _what to do_ and also some _what not to do _photos, and plenty of simple, clear, proven advice in how to find light, how to see light, how to position your subjects in relation to the light, how to compose photos, and how to use the camera to make good, solid photos.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Digital-Photography-John-Hedgecoe/dp/0756623545/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=51K5rgBvF7L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR133,160_&refRID=0A1J9H31JKY94S8RRJ9D


----------



## Peeb (Nov 13, 2015)

The_Traveler said:


> Peeb said:
> 
> 
> > snowbear said:
> ...


I'm always  happy to post photographic ideas up here because I am    confident that those with more experience and training and artistic vision will be quick to point out when I am off-base. Such as now.   If you're asking me to defend the sketch idea that I threw up, I cannot,  Beyond what I've already said. It simply makes me happy.   Is it in artistically poor choice? Apparently. The OP certainly is free to disregard it.   Since I put it up, the OP has received sage counsel to disregard it, which is certainly fair.   I recognize that selective colorization is cliché.  I recognize that it might tend to draw the eye away from the subject for some.  I still liked it.


----------



## Derrel (Nov 13, 2015)

I agree that cropping off the building on the right hand side made the image much,much better, turning it in to what it is: a for-the-record-shot of a little boy's trip to a pumpkin patch place. That big aluminum sided farm building on the right hand side was just really hurting the overall feel of the shot, and getting rid of that really tightened the photo up down to the essentials: very small boy, plus pumpkins.

As far as improving the shot...his eye direction out of the frame is very much a net minus. There's not a lot that can be done after the fact on a shot like this (an over-exposed, already processed, screen-sized .JPG files) except to crop it down to its most essential elements, and then just be satisfied.


----------



## snowbear (Nov 13, 2015)

Peeb said:


> I'm always  happy to post photographic ideas up here because I am    confident that those with more experience and training and artistic vision will be quick to point out when I am off-base. Such as now.   If you're asking me to defend the sketch idea that I threw up, I cannot,  Beyond what I've already said. It simply makes me happy.   Is it in artistically poor choice? Apparently. The OP certainly is free to disregard it.   Since I put it up, the OP has received sage counsel to disregard it, which is certainly fair.   I recognize that selective colorization is cliché.  I recognize that it might tend to draw the eye away from the subject for some.  I still liked it.



No worries.  Everything is opinion and we may like different things - that's what makes the world tolerable. 

Hopefully ganafbbyx will try a few of the suggestions and see what works for them, and keep shooting.


----------



## ganafbbyx (Nov 13, 2015)

charchri4 said:


> I'm don't know how to blur the back ground or fix the blown out shirt with a jpg but just a simple crop focuses the photo where you want it to go.





Wow i actually see a difference ! Thanks.


----------



## charchri4 (Nov 13, 2015)

The_Traveler said:


> charchri4 said:
> 
> 
> > You kidding?  If my kid was that cute he'd be all over FB no matter how crappy the shot!
> ...



Very good point and why she posted in the first place.  I sort of forgot about that...


----------



## paigew (Nov 14, 2015)

I think working on use of light and composition is a great start. Cute subjects!


----------



## katsrevenge (Nov 14, 2015)

charchri4 said:


> I'm don't know how to blur the back ground or fix the blown out shirt with a jpg but just a simple crop focuses the photo where you want it to go.



In GIMP (free photoshop alternative that has all the same tools) you'd select the outline of the thing you don't want blurred, here it's the child, and apply a filter to the rest of it. A slight Gaussian blur will look like this:


 


This is a really quick and dirty edit. Really quick and dirty...eesh. You can see where I missed some background around the hands. I've used this method to 'save' iffy but cute cellphone pictures of small kids for family members. I also spent more than 4-5 minutes on them.


----------



## jcdeboever (Nov 23, 2015)

Derrel said:


> If you "_want to get better_", the easiest way to do that is to buy an instructional manual that covers many dozen of the basic aspects of picture-making. In my opinion, the John Hedgecoe photography books are some of the best instructional manuals in photography. Hedgecoe was the first-ever full professor of photography at London's Royal College. His instruction is geared toward adults. His books have many,many,many small illustrations and diagrams that illustrate each teaching point. There have been very few books that are done with an many illustrations and diagrams as his many books.
> 
> One problem with learning from YouTube videos or the web sites and blogs is that the "teaching"  found in those formats is often scattershot, half-baked, and in many cases, just flat-out lousy. Learning from a book designed by an accomplished instructor and author means that your course is layed out for you, in a book, with a chapter list, and an index, and over 1,000 illustrations with _what to do_ and also some _what not to do _photos, and plenty of simple, clear, proven advice in how to find light, how to see light, how to position your subjects in relation to the light, how to compose photos, and how to use the camera to make good, solid photos.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/The-Digital-Photography-John-Hedgecoe/dp/0756623545/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=51K5rgBvF7L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR133,160_&refRID=0A1J9H31JKY94S8RRJ9D


I received mine on Friday. I paid a little over $4.00 including shipping. OMG, it is so worth it. Thanks for sharing the link. There is over 1000 pictures in it. Everyone picks it up off the coffee table and comments about something in it. Great advice Derrel.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk


----------



## Derrel (Nov 23, 2015)

jcdeboever said:
			
		

> I received mine on Friday. I paid a little over $4.00 including shipping. OMG, it is so worth it. Thanks for sharing the link. There is over 1000 pictures in it. Everyone picks it up off the coffee table and comments about something in it. Great advice Derrel.



Hey, good to hear that you've picked up a book by one of my favorite photography instructional book authors! YES--1,000-plus illustrations, and always something interesting diagrammed out, illustrated, made into a concise lesson. I LOVE the Hedgecoe books!


----------



## Dmariehill (Nov 30, 2015)

I started by posting photos here and getting critique on composition.   That helped me start composing some better shots.   And I worked on that and getting comfy with my camera and 1 lens first.   If you can adjust your focus points (check the camera manual), that can help you.    And I second the comment earlier about using a non installed flash.    The first photo could benefit from some fill light to brighten his face and even out the shadows.   I'm definitely still learning, but I just keep practicing.   Learning from these folks, and trying again.   I typically don't post a lot.  I post, get some input and go work on it for a while, then come back when I'm stuck again.   Your 2 shared photos work well as family remembering photos.   A little adjusting, and you can get there.

I've found that with each new lens, I have to get used to the focus points again.   Some lens are more sensitive to movement, some like different appetures, some work best for me with just one focus point to work with while others are just fine with all the focus points active.


----------



## Shades of Blue (Dec 16, 2015)

I like both photos.  I take a lot of photos of kids, and sometimes you just get what you get!  It's easy to pose adults, but kids are more difficult, especially toddlers!  Photography is subjective.  You can show two people two separate photos and one will hate them and the other love them.  To me, if it looks good to you, and you are the photographer, then you are golden.  But, in this case you know something is off and you are looking for help.

Having said that, in the first photo with the leaves, I like it, but think you could be closer to the subject and more centered.  Focus is more on the leaves, but I'm ok with a softer focused subject...maybe others aren't.

Second image is good in the composition department, but it needs a tad bit more darks and contrast.  Maybe even a bit more color?

Full disclosure, I'm no professional lol


----------

