Your Opinion of these Photos - NOT from a DSLR

[SarahMD]

I took these photos with my Kodak Easy Share a 6.1 MP. I've printed photos of my daughter before and they turned out beautiful, in my opinion, lol. While I'm not building a portfolio but I do enjoy taking photos in a sort of professional manner. I will prolly wait for my Rebel and learn that before I actually build a portfolio, but for now I'm just having fun photographing friends and family and trying to get the posing and post processing stuff down. I seem to notice that I let them do their thing...I don't tell them to do a whole lot but Look over there...Look at me...open your eyes, lol. Things like that...but yesterday me and one of my bestest friends Melissa had a little session so she can have photos for printing and nice photos for her myspace, lol. My other friend actually wants me to do couple shots with her and her boyfriend at a park sometime, prolly next weekend. It would be cool...but for now here are the post processed images that I did with Melissa yesterday! She's a funky urban kinda girl so I warmed up the photos and did some acidic type conversions. I didn't use any actions for these photos and if I had I promise I would credit! But these are all mine, lol.

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/ProPhotosBySarah/Melissa/LindenWall/100_3098.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/ProPhotosBySarah/Melissa/LindenWall/100_3091pop.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/ProPhotosBySarah/Melissa/LindenWall/100_3072warm.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/ProPhotosBySarah/Melissa/LindenWall/100_3079vivid.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/ProPhotosBySarah/Melissa/LindenWall/100_3062pop.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/ProPhotosBySarah/Melissa/LindenWall/100_3062blackandwhitebluish.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/ProPhotosBySarah/Melissa/Cemetary/100_3037chocolate.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/ProPhotosBySarah/Melissa/Cemetary/100_3037copywarm.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/ProPhotosBySarah/Melissa/Cemetary/100_3045acidic.jpg

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q248/ProPhotosBySarah/Melissa/Cemetary/100_3049blackandwhite.jpg

[bethwillis]

So do you want CC (constructive criticism) on these images?

[SarahMD]

yes of course!

[bethwillis]

All of these photos have very cool backgrounds that probably fits her personality very well.

#1 My eye is immediately drawn to the bright pink words on the right hand side which is a little distracting from the picture and she has hot spots on the side of her face where the sun was coming down.
#2 Her eyes seem a little soft here, possibly a tad out of focus, nice backlighting though, I actually like the sun lit hair here
#3 Her left eye here looks a little bit dead as it's hard to see the white of her eye, I would have moved her hair out of her face a bit and turned her a little more forward so that that eye was receiving enough light. There are also hot spots on her legs and arm.
#4 VERY NICE! Love the pose, love that she's looking off to the side rather than directly at the camera, love the background!
#5 not sure I'm a fan of this pose as you can almost see up her skirt here. The top of her leg is a bit hot. The thing with hot spots is that usually your eye is draw towards them because they are the brightest part of the picture.
#6 This conversion looks a bit blue
#7 I like the sepia conversion here but not a fan of the pose, I think it might be the angle it was shot at as the first thing I see is all belley and my eye isn't drawn to her eyes.
#8 Nice color
#9 The facial expression here is a bit odd to me she looks kind of scared, like she's hiding from something
#10 Very nice conversion here I might boost the contrast a little bit though.

She just doesn't look very happy to me in these photos, but you know teenage girls maybe that was the look she wanted and was going for and it's her. Nice job overall here and they look great for coming from a point and shoot camera. Where you shooting auto or did you get to manual set somethings on these ones? If so what were you settings? Fstop, shutter, ISO?

[SarahMD]

My camera doesn't do well with manual settings I think it's because it's not SLR..I've tried MANY times with manual settings and they are just wonky.

I appreciate your feedback. I will end up fixing these soon. And it was hard for her to keep her eyes open because she usually wears glasses and doesn't have contacts at the moment. She said her eyes were sensitive so I tried to keep reminding her to open wide, lol.

How do you fix hot spots like with her legs. She has a minimal tan and she's fair skinned...I wanted to boost the contrast of the colors but it also made her skin blow out...how do I keep from NOT doing that?

[mamakimberly]

I think they are great-- BUT I think they will really be awesome when you get your DSLR and can get some great bokeh (blur) going on!! :)

[SarahMD]

I think they are great-- BUT I think they will really be awesome when you get your DSLR and can get some great bokeh (blur) going on!! :)

Oh I totally know!!!

That's one of the main reasons I want to get it, lol. DH just started a new job that should potentially increase our income 2x and I can't wait till the money starts rolling in...in one pay check I would be able to buy a DSLR....oh but I still have to be patient as he is still 'training'................ GOSH I'm alsmot dieing for a DSLR!!

[Hom74]

I think the photos are great. I love how the light hits her in the 2nd photo and I think the photos and even the graffiti (lol) are very fitting for this age.

btw...I think you will be BLOWN away by how these photos look if you did have a dSLR...esp the ones where she's a little separated from the bg. I tell you - I'm a blur (bokeh) addict.

another btw...Beth...you're welcome to critique the photos in my LOs anytime lol. Just PM me...though I'm just an amateur so my improvement may take a long time lol.

[bethwillis]

It's quite hard to "fix" hot spots and have it look natural, it's just something you want to try and avoid getting when you shoot. One way you can do this is by trying to shoot in shade and not open sun and not shooting mid-day when the sun is the worst.

If you want to run a color boost, I would do it on a sepearte layer, and then on these I would just use the history brush to bring back the skin tone, because it will blow out with the already hot spots here especially.

Shooting manual is a very desirable thing as you can control your settings much more easily, that's why a DSLR is nice but these definately are not bad coming from a point and shoot camera.

[bethwillis]

Good to know Karen :)