Some photo work for C&C

L31mr0d

I'm wouldn't view myself as even an amateur, but I like to take photos and I like to use photoshop, any help to point me in the right direction as to taking better photos would be greatly appreciated. I like to do some restore work as well.

Ruu_Old

Ill comment on what I know (or think I know) about. They all look fairly good apart from pic3, its a little bit dark for my liking. Super job on the restored piccie

elven

I like your eye. I don't have anything constructive to say really, just wondered how come the scans (I presume they are scanned..?) are a bit bland since you've done such a good job with the antique picture! I'd love to see them in their true form.

K!LL!@N

Very nice work on the restore.
Nice reuse of the stone from the top left to fill the void on the top right.
Just above the bottom left looks a little off but that's because i know it's been altered.
If you'd just showed me the pic and said "Here's an old pic i found", i probably won't notice.

Of the photos 2 is the only one that appeals to me.
The others are a little too dull.

I can see what you were going for with 1, there was obviously some nice sun rays breaking through but the pic has come out a little noisey and dull.

The sky in the background is actually kind of nice in 3 but the donkey/pony/horse just distracts from it.

My eye keeps being drawn to that little blue dot in the reeds in 4 for some reason.
Seems like a dull, windy day which doesn't really appeal.
If you were trying to capture that, then you did.

Killian

L31mr0d

Well you're right, because I actually did a job on the restored photo, didn't really do much touchups on the rest, apart from a bit of contrast/brightness alterations with some colour adjustments. I would of spent more time on them but there is a line in my own mind between what I actually shot and what I actually made. Too much post production is bad IMO. Plus i think the gamma is off on my display. Pictures that look vibrant on my screen seem to look bland on others.

the third picture was a bit of a pain, i wanted to keep the dark contrast of the sun and clouds but wanted to lighten the foreground, i masked it off and did, but it never looked realistic, so I just left it as is.

elven

Post production is just bringing the picture up to what you saw in your mind before you clicked the button. So long as you aren't putting something in that wasn't there all you're doing is refining. Don't forget that the master photographers worked on their prints for weeks, they didn't just take the picture and pick up the prints from Boots... hehe.

Anyway, if you get serious in any way then you can always get the negs scanned rather than just going from the print and that would give a better result too. Scanning the print means you're replicating the crap printing process of whatever lab you got them produced in.

Keep posting, I'd love to see more of your stuff.

Dimy

Nice shots and great work on the retouch! The only critic I have is the slightly angled horizon on the first few pics, you might want to rotate them a few degrees and crop.

Fionn

restoring old photos can be quite a challenge, i did one once for my sister who was doing some geneology stuff. It's good fun tho!
Photodeluxe is great

whyulittle

No.4 is looking at Burgess Park yeah?

L31mr0d

Yeah i find any old photo can be restored as long you can see completely one side of their face and have reference photos to build the rest, monochrome is the easiest to work with. I've tried colour and just couldn't get the hand of it.

... and #4 was taken in Athlone, I think it was Burgess park.

BTW none of the actual photos are from film, I use digital so at least I can see what I shot and do some post production before having to pay for it to be printed. I do believe in post production up until, like you said, the photo stops being the original, I could've swapped out the sky in the 4th image and pasted in a nice sunset but it wouldn't of been true to the picture. It was a cloudy day so you make the best of it.

cianclarke

Eyes popped out of my head when I saw #1 - good stuff!

Fajitas!

Very nice work, as Elven said, you have a nice eye.

And considering you said you wouldn't even view yourself as an amateur, all of your shots follow the rule of thirds, and bring in som nice colour! Keep it up!

Flipflip

Yeah i agree with fajitas!.

I think they are some nice shots! id love to see more!

L31mr0d

Thanks. lol, i don't even know what the rule of thirds is, i'll have to look that up. I'm an electronic engineer by trade so photography couldn't be further from my profession. The only thing from it I apply to my photographs is symmetry, and now that someone said the horizons are off i'm going to have to go back and reedit them to fix it. I carry a camera everywhere with me so I guess i'll start looking into getting a little more practice in. I have 4 friends that are professional photographers so I guess looking at their work has rubbed off on me.