Marisa & Randy

[klpurkett]

I had the chance to spend an evening taking pictures with my sister, Marisa, and her boyfriend, Randy, last week. It was overcast all evening, so our "golden hour" light wasn't quite what I expected, but we had a great time. I have just finished reading Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson, so this was my trial run with manual exposures during a photo session. I also got to try out my new grey card. I was amazed at how helpful that was in getting my white balance dialed in!!!

Anyway, tinypics isn't working for me today, so I tried uploading the images into a photo album here on CiC... Here's the link. Does this work?

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/fo...p?albumid=3606

All C&C welcome! I am anxious to continue learning and improving my people shots. Thanks, Kristy

[Digital]

Kristy, very nice series.



Bruce

[Shadowman]

Nice efforts.

[IzzieK]

I tried to respond to this post yesterday as the weather was getting wild somewhere here with 4 warning sirens announcing a bad storm and tornado near our hangar, but I was able to get on the internet and here but my response do not want to upload so I will try to respond to this message now at 3:32am to see if this will go through...I think I said something that I like all the shots you did of your sister and her boyfriend. They were very nicely done and processed.

Let us see if this will work...

[gregj1763]

Really nice photo's Kristy, the couple look very comfortable and happy, makes for great images.
Well done

[klpurkett]

Thank you all for the kind comments. They are a rather fun and photogenic couple, which made it easy on me... The hard part was choosing favorites out of the several hundred images I took that evening.

[klpurkett]

I tried to respond to this post yesterday as the weather was getting wild somewhere here with 4 warning sirens announcing a bad storm and tornado near our hangar, but I was able to get on the internet and here but my response do not want to upload so I will try to respond to this message now at 3:32am to see if this will go through...I think I said something that I like all the shots you did of your sister and her boyfriend. They were very nicely done and processed.

Let us see if this will work...

Izzie, I'm sorry to hear you're having such scary weather over there... Is your hangar okay? We're experiencing a very unusual heat wave here in Eastern Washington - it got up to 111° here yesterday, and it's supposed to stay near 100° for over a week. It's been a dry year so far, so fire risk is really really high right now... Anyway... I can relate to having trouble posting recently. Me and tinypics are not friends right now. Hope you were able to get some sleep! I've been up since 4:30am with my 13 month old who won't go back to sleep. Good thing she's so darn cute - makes it hard to be upset with her.

[bnnrcn]

Very nice series Kristy IMO all images need some noise reduction and sharpening, very nice poses.

[IzzieK]

It went passed without any damage to anything at the airport, so we are all OK there...what was scary was that my stepson was out there and if I did not tell Bill, he wouldn't have checked in on him. Apparently he was under the bridge waiting for the tornado touchdown near them...he wasn't alone under that bridge, he was with other drivers too shielding themselves from its passing. In the meantime we were watching the weather like crazy on our local channel and he was listening on his radio so when they (all the drivers who were there with him) were sure the tornado diverted, he made a rush back home here. I may be at odds with him at times but I do not want him to die yet or suffer any damage, physical or not.

The weather over there and you are nearer the Northern Hemisphere than we are seems to be too high...the best we had suffered here since I came to the US was in 2012 a week after the flying event we hosted...13 days of 105°F. We were lucky to have held that event a week earlier...

Izzie, I'm sorry to hear you're having such scary weather over there... Is your hangar okay? We're experiencing a very unusual heat wave here in Eastern Washington - it got up to 111° here yesterday, and it's supposed to stay near 100° for over a week. It's been a dry year so far, so fire risk is really really high right now... Anyway... I can relate to having trouble posting recently. Me and tinypics are not friends right now.

Hope you were able to get some sleep! I've been up since 4:30am with my 13 month old who won't go back to sleep. Good thing she's so darn cute - makes it hard to be upset with her.

haahaha...you sound like my daughter-in-law...she always want to smother my grandchild ..."because she is so darn cute!" exactly what you said...

Well...take care of the heat over there...way too hot for me!! We're in our high 80s this week and some showers...We've passed the storm...Hopefully next week when I do another shoot, it will be pleasant too...

[klpurkett]

Very nice series Kristy IMO all images need some noise reduction and sharpening, very nice poses.

Thanks for your input, Binnur. I will have to do some studying up on noise reduction and sharpening techniques... I did neither one in my processing of these. Do you suppose the extra noise is due to the lower light and relatively high ISO I used? Could my very cheap lens be the culprit, or is this purely a camera settings issue? I'm not happy with how most of my images look when magnified at 100% or more, and I'm not sure how to get them razor sharp... Or if that's even possible given my equipment. I'm using a Nikon D3100 and a kit lens.

[IzzieK]

I forgot to ask you -- what software are you using for your pp? The EXIF on your shot lacks detail... I was about to tell you my system of sharpening, but I can't until I know if you are using the same as I have -- Photoshop and NIK's software...

[klpurkett]

I forgot to ask you -- what software are you using for your pp? The EXIF on your shot lacks detail... I was about to tell you my system of sharpening, but I can't until I know if you are using the same as I have -- Photoshop and NIK's software...

I am using Adobe Raw and Photoshop Elements. I've seen quite a few people on here talk about using NIKs... What is this? I'd love to hear about your system for sharpening! Thanks!

I forgot to ask you -- what software are you using for your pp? The EXIF on your shot lacks detail... I was about to tell you my system of sharpening, but I can't until I know if you are using the same as I have -- Photoshop and NIK's software...

[IzzieK]

I am using Adobe Raw and Photoshop Elements. I've seen quite a few people on here talk about using NIKs... What is this? I'd love to hear about your system for sharpening! Thanks!

OK...photoshop elements is for tidying up your shots. You know, removing all distractions like rubbish bins, soda bottles, etc. Then you go to your filter selection and select Nik's Viveza 2 to sort out which ones of the sliders you want to use. I usually choose some global choice there if there is something that needs brightening or darkening. All sliders -- you choose a slider up and down depending what you want to do. The structure slider is for sharpening the whole image if you choose global. But if you use control point, you push that button and put it on top of your object and it will only select that part. Here is a link to Viveza 2 how to use...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=P...&v=tuCi1k7S0Ig

If there is a need for simple decrease brightening on a section of the image, I use this, otherwise I use Color EFEX which has 52 filters you can use for your image. Here are the 55 filters in 52 weeks tutorial. I bookmarked the Youtube page so I can find it easily...here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...OMalMD4-uET-5c

Just be careful in using the Detail Enhancer which I use for sharpening actually....you can overdo it. I have done it on people's faces when they have a lot of wrinkles (for old men) to emphasize the curves and shadows and used it for other images for different reasons. In people, women's images react differently to different filters, so you have to pick and choose which ones you wanted to use. I have been using this software everyday for my images since I came back from our event in Kentucky...it was fun to use and well worth it to pay for the software. So handy...with all the sliders and also saving your own recipe.

[klpurkett]

OK...photoshop elements is for tidying up your shots. You know, removing all distractions like rubbish bins, soda bottles, etc. Then you go to your filter selection and select Nik's Viveza 2 to sort out which ones of the sliders you want to use....

Thanks Izzie! I'll have to look into Niks... This sounds like a fun program! Thanks for sharing how you use it. I appreciate you taking the time to be so thorough.

[IzzieK]

You mean I talked a lot... I used to teach Graphics at our computer club in Oz and most people prefers details so I guess I am used to it...

Thanks Izzie! I'll have to look into Niks... This sounds like a fun program! Thanks for sharing how you use it. I appreciate you taking the time to be so thorough.

[Manfred M]

Kristy - I think you have a nice set here. Your portraiture is moving along quite nicely. I will have to agree with the comments on sharpness and noise. Noise is usually indicative that your exposure is off and this tends to be exacerbated by high ISO. Sharpening and noise reductions usually don't work all that well together, so doing noise reduction selectively (i.e. applying it only to areas of the image that is probably the direction to go here). It is best if you can avoid it all together. I tend to select the lowest ISO value I can get away with and get the exposure right. That way I tend to avoid having to do any noise reduction and can sharpen the image properly.

An overcast day can be fine for portraiture, as the light is nice and diffuse and you are not fighting with harsh shadows.

I've also noticed that some of the images have fairly light backgrounds. This seems to be causing two related issues; first of all this seems to be fooling your light meter and the images appear to be slightly underexposed. Using exposure compensation (probably around +0.3 or +0.7), but that will brighten the background even more.

The other issue with bright backgrounds is that our eyes tend to be drawn to the brightest part of the image. This should be your subject(s). Ensuring that the background is a bit darker is usually a better solution; I find your images where their faces are not competing with the water are stronger images.

My last comment is colour balance. The gray card lets you set that, but I find I prefer slightly warmer tones when shooting people, so I will take my neutral colour balance and warm it up a bit by adding more yellow and sometimes a bit or red. Try to be consistent with skin tones in a series of image like these. You mostly are, but a couple are warmer than the others.

Regardless, these are getting to be more minor points and your portraiture has come along quite nicely.

[klpurkett]

Kristy - I think you have a nice set here. Your portraiture is moving along quite nicely. I will have to agree with the comments on sharpness and noise...

Thanks for the very constructive and encouraging comments, Manfred. Points well taken about the noise/lack of sharpness, light backgrounds, and variations in skin tones. These are all things I was thinking about when working on these in post. Now, I just need to be thinking about them WHILE SHOOTING rather than after! Anyway, thank you for taking the time to think about and offer suggestions concerning these pictures. Much appreciated!

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the very constructive and encouraging comments, Manfred. Points well taken about the noise/lack of sharpness, light backgrounds, and variations in skin tones. These are all things I was thinking about when working on these in post. Now, I just need to be thinking about them WHILE SHOOTING rather than after! Anyway, thank you for taking the time to think about and offer suggestions concerning these pictures. Much appreciated!

Kristy - you'll know when you are hitting your stride when you get back from a shoot, open the files and say to yourself "I got the shots I wanted to get". This implies that you had a mental shot list and were able to execute it properly from a technical and compositional standpoint. It doesn't mean every image is going to work out for you (they never do), but rather you got the shots you wanted "on purpose" rather than by luck.

[bnnrcn]

Very sorry for being late Kristy As Manfred already mentioned it is always better to keep the ISO as low as possible while shooting the image so that you wouldn't deal with noise reduction in PP. For sharpening my images, I like unsharp mask in PS and I do most of my sharpening with it. It is likely that PS Elements has some sharpening tools too. So if I were you I would give them a go

Thanks for your input, Binnur. I will have to do some studying up on noise reduction and sharpening techniques... I did neither one in my processing of these. Do you suppose the extra noise is due to the lower light and relatively high ISO I used? Could my very cheap lens be the culprit, or is this purely a camera settings issue? I'm not happy with how most of my images look when magnified at 100% or more, and I'm not sure how to get them razor sharp... Or if that's even possible given my equipment. I'm using a Nikon D3100 and a kit lens.

[klpurkett]

Kristy - you'll know when you are hitting your stride when you get back from a shoot, open the files and say to yourself "I got the shots I wanted to get". This implies that you had a mental shot list and were able to execute it properly from a technical and compositional standpoint. It doesn't mean every image is going to work out for you (they never do), but rather you got the shots you wanted "on purpose" rather than by luck.

Thanks for replying, Manfred. Yes, that will be a lovely day! I'd say in several ways I was very happy with the results from this shoot, but I'm still struggling with the technicalities a bit. I was most happy with the flow of the shoot, composition, and posing aspects, and least satisfied with exposures, lighting (but only in some sets), noise, and missed focus. I'm pretty sure practice is the most important step in overcoming such struggles, so I'll just keep at it... I'm looking forward to the day when things that take a lot of thinking right now become second nature!