All good points and they are blah and heres why.

Tire, your right, just pointed down and clicked quickly, I just wanted a pic of the wheel. If I wasn't rushed, I should have stopped down, got more depth of field, and, of course, detailed the rubber.

2. Funky angle and the black makes you tires disappear, which I find almost disturbing. Also the lack of background, well now my eyes are tracking every tiny reflection trying to determine if this was your driveway or a parking lot, so you've lost my attention on the car.

The angle is exactly what I wanted ... to exaggerate the lines. I quickly blacked out the background because its way to distracting. Now, the other points about reflections are totally correct. I should have blacked out inside the car and toned out the reflections.

However, that is exactly the angle I wanted ...

Third, again, your right on reflections, I saw there and saw myself and thought that cool. Its just a quick pic. To do it for real, reflections have to go. Your right.

Again, angle is OK, again to exagerrate the lines but the reflections are bad. Tires lost in the black ... hehe, think ... artistic. Now the thing is, many ppl like to get way down low on the butt end and take butt pics but I got so much damn clutter in the background, I aint got a good one yet

THANKS dude .... SPRING ... I need SPRING!

Its snowing now ... Its going to be some time before I really can take good pics.

 

Snowing here too (and 14F), and ya know what I'm going to go out this afternoon and take some photos in the loaner cabrio with the top down! Challenge yourself, find a parking lot a state park, a town square, control the background, and try some new things. And guess what, I know I can't get a shot like this when spring rolls around.

If #2 had a background it may actually help it show off the lines more. Also have you looked into a CPL to conrol the reflections a little bit more?

 

yeah, I know, in fact my wife the other day said lets go someplace so we have a good background. I know to do this, got to find time.

Oh yeah DAMMMM. I gotta buy a circular polarizer.

CRAP. I forget all about that. I usually always had one on. Those things are MONEY ... like $150 a pop.

Argh...

wife JUST took this one with old nikon in the snow

 

I got mine for like $30 from wolf camera, does the job just as well, and I chose to do there thing were you get 10% off 3 photo filters so I picked up a red filter for B&W and a spot filter at the same time and saved almost $15 and still made it out spending less than $50; rare occurance at camera store.

Got a few this afternoon, but lacking PS currently so it'll be a while before I can post them.

 

Lots wrong with it but I'd give it a 7 out of 10

 

Are you being a bit of a provocateur, or just joking around?

 

Well after staring at it in PS the fact the background isn't all snow, should have cropped out the rest of the bush on the right and possibly eliminated the foot prints and the left side is a little dark.

But anytime I went to ness with it in PS the majority of attempts to fix such things ended up making me more displeased with the photo, so I acknowledge there are some cleanliness issues with it but something about it has me debating wether or not it is desktop worthy for the next few weeks.

The persoanl rating was joking around.

And PS is a different ball game than JB entirely. I like the way the metallic works with the lighter color, I think I'll have to pull out and play with the polarizer tomorrow before I bring it back.

One side effect of this thread though is I can't look at my photos anymore without picking them apart. So I can see them getting better for the most part (I'm taking few photos to get the same amount of good ones) but I'm always searching for the flaws in my own work.

 

OK
technical: the exposure is good, the DOF is wonky, and the image is soft.
artistic: the composition/crop lacks flow.

Tip #3: Clean your optics and don't skimp on filters

Tip #4: Edit ruthlessly

 

All things I can look at before I shoot tomorrow.

No filters were used, didn't pay attention and had the camera set in Av mode at 9 instead of the 3.5-5 I usually shoot at, and I can play around with the artistic side of things. I think I'll probably hunt downa decent drawing book from the library from some reading I was doing over on photo/net to help develop that kind of thinking.

 

http://www.flickr.com/groups/l4/disc...57594241560739

 

Cool

Now if it wasnt like 5 degrees outside

and if I could figure out how to wire these new computers correctly

 

LOL it's not ewven 5 here hence the lack of photos. BUt the link is some good reading on making HDR's highly realistic so you can get images that don't look fake but instead match up to what eyes capture that cameras don't.

 

I like em there are a few details I'd be picky about and few things I might give a little try so I did a chopin' as Kurt so dearly calls it and here's two variations I came up with realatively quickly.


First I masked off the chrome on the car the inverted selection and added a cooling filter to get the red/purpleness out of the chrome which I found distracting in the original (about the first thing I noticed) Then I healed out the white light in the mountain as when I looked at the MCS it wants to go left leading my eye there and it was one streetlamp all by its lonesome. Then I picked up the trash bag on the lower left corner with a paint bursh and a few different colors eye dropped out of the water. I also burned the front fender reflector a little so as not to distract the eyes any.



THis one a I took a few steps futher, masked the air dam, invert selection lighted up the exposure so you can see the leading edge of the dam a little clearer the masked and inverted the brake calipers, added a red filter (like 7%) to help the natural pop of the painted calipers.

Masked off the bottom half (in hindshight should have used the gradient instead of the brush) and warmed up the top of the photo to make the clouds pop from the sky a little more the inverted my selection and cooled the bottom half so the lake wasn't blening into the sky as much also brought the MINI silver back to a more commonly seen hue. THe I made another layer and masked the MINI, added a glaussian blur 2 around 2 pixels set the layer to ooverlay and dropped the opacity a little. This slightly darkens everything around the MINI and increases the contrast just a little and makes it so the MINI is the only thing inperfect focus and everything else is in a softer focus. It's a trick I picked up from aportrait editing tutorial.

Just my variation on things hope you don't mind Dave.

 

Found this thought it was a good read/re-read.

Also shutterbug has some tutorials for CS2 this month, which is good again. I'll have to get some time to try them out and see if there are any that'll work on my MINI photos to share with y'all.

 

30 sec with the PS2

 

About 2 minutes here. This is the kind of junk I end up with.

speednut: change your alias to photochompnut. Picking up the trash is good, and lights or reflections are annoying. Are you keeping a journal as you do this?

 

Thanks Motor for all the good ideas. FWIW, anything I post here is fair game for remixing, so knock yourself out.

Can't believe I missed the trash bag, ARRRRGH! At least I moved the car so the tricycle and the beer cans were not in the frame. The water in the SF bay isn't too deep at this location and there's all kinds of junk in it.

My smoke tinted side markers are still to bright for you, eh? I hesitated to rubber stamp the light on the left side out, should have taken the 10 seconds to do it I suppose. Should have done the same with the bulging dimple from my air horn in the bumper side. Your changes are nice and subtle; I had to toggle between the original and the last one to really see what you did. Thanks for the remix!

Thems' in the peanut gallery who don't use real photo editing software don't get to complain about photochompin'. Once you do, I'll be happy to share the RAW file with you to see the original captured colors. I'm afraid my journal is my defective mental journal, but eventually it will sink in properly.

Cheers!

 

Good cause I've decided I no longer like my MINI photos for all these tutorials I've been trying.

Kurt's not running PS yet and he's getting on our case about this

 

So when does CS3 come out?

 

The beta is out right now and you can D/L it from Adobe site if you want to try it. Looks pretty interesting, but I haven't had a chance to explore it more. I believe they are targeting a late spring launch?

 

For what little I used CS3 Beta it was phenominal. Now that I've got CS2 working right again I should probably give the beta another go.

Got some photos today, 14F so unless you provide significatly colder no excuses!!! And I was in the snow too!

 

Well some of us also work

 

You've never stopped at the park on your commute home to grab a few? And you call yourself an enthusiast......

Here's somw photos in want of feedback






Out of the 134 photos (go ahead and divide by three and add a few) I took
there were a decent amout that came out nicely, spreading to other areas
(main still lifes and portraits around the house) has helpedmake it so I'm
seeing the MINI a little differently again and paying more attention to the
basics a little more too.

 

The only thing I ever stopped in a park on the commute on to grab have been ... oh, different subject

RU kidding me. When I'm heading home, its heading home. Get out of work clothes and get comfortable! Besides, my wife would kill me if if she thought I was grabbing a few in the park

 

Ahh so being single does have its advantages