Newbie shots on the beach

[Sheiky]

Hey Matt,


first of all welcome to the forum and great photos!!


I think your photos are pretty good exposed, perhaps 1/3 stop darker, but I wouldn't change too much.


I personally like it that you still can see detail and that the persons aren't dark silhouettes.


My favorites are the 2nd one of your first post and the 3rd one of your second post(btw that one is begging for HDR[:P]) The thing about the first photo that I don't like is that the second surfer is cut-off.


I would recommend you to do a little post-processing if you know how to. Andy, I like the idea of your edit, but I think it's a bit over-done. In my opinion it's too saturated(orange) and as I said before I like to see a little more detail in the surfers, but that's a personal favor.


Jan

[Dumien]

I totally get what you mean Jan... what I did was just to show the way I'd go... hehe, plus I'm not good in post, my hand is always a bit heavy, you know what I mean? hahaha


Andy

[mattyg1027]

Totally love the second shot!! I played around a bit (just a tiny tiny bit) with it in DPP: I just edited the overall curve a bit. This should look something like "linear contrast"... I suggest you try using it on the other pictures. If you shot in RAW format you can click on the button right under "Constrast" in the RAW editing window in DPP

Cool! I definitely like the more vivid colors in the sky. Maybe I can go for somewhere in the middle where there's a bit more definition in the surfboards still. Unfortunately back then I did not shoot in RAW so I only have JPEG. I only recently discovered RAW and everything you can do with it in DPP. I still have no idea what all that tone curve stuff is about... anyone have any sites that explain that stuff well?

[Dumien]

My suggestion is just to play around with it. But I say that because I like to find things out myself .


as for what I did in the tone cruve: I selected a point on the line somewhere close to the right and pulled it down (this should somehow take care of highlights) and then to alter constrast you can either scroll the bar that says "constrast" ( hahaha) or you could pull towards the center the left and right sides of the square you can see. If you put your mouse over those, you'll see a horizontal arrow appear...


Maybe (read: of course) I wasn't that clear, so if you need more explanation just ask .


Andy

[erno james]

Both are really great shots. At f/8, all is sharp. For a similar sky like this, I'll try shots at f/8, f/11, and even f/16 and play around with exposure compensation. I agree with other posters that going doing a full stop on exposure compensation would add dramatic hues to your wonderful sky. Unless you know the surfers, I would be fine with keeping them in silhouette. Of course if they are friends or family and you want to highlight them as your subject, keeping them just out of silhouette would be desired (my opinion of course).


I do agree with Neuroanatomist in that the horizon should be horizontal (in general), unless you're going really artsy in which case you could deliberately throw it off at something like 45 degrees.

[Sheiky]

I only recently discovered RAW and everything you can do with it in DPP. I still have no idea what all that tone curve stuff is about... anyone have any sites that explain that stuff well?

I don't really have sites or anything. But I can see that you're better of to start in DPP for instance than Photoshop [:P]


I learned all post-processing myself by just trying and with help of others (also help from around here). The tone-curve is something I don't even use...I'm learning about it a bit at the moment. I use lightroom and just go by all the sliders and slide them to both ends and see what happens.


The tone curve is a line-graph which displays the amount of light from highlights to shadows. You can pull or push this line anywhere between both ends and this way you can precisely adjust lighting in specific light-areas. Hmm I don't know if my explaining helps a lot since I'm getting confused myself now [:P]


Search google images for tone curve and you might get an idea what to look for. But personally I think you're better off by trying a few sliders like exposure, fill-light, shadows, blacks, contrast, saturation, vibrance, shaprness etc etc


Jan