Beach Girl

[DJ-S1]

I snapped this quickly as I was leaving the beach; I'm sure it could be better so let's hear it. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/ear.gif Thanks!

http://daveorama.smugmug.com/photos/33457431-L.jpg

[4labs]

I would definaetly crop out the band of sky it does nothing and maybe paint on a bikini bottom that fits?http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/yelrotflmao.gif

[colourbox]

The people in the water are crashing into her head in the composition. If it could have been taken a few seconds sooner or later...but these shots are hard to take because you have to make the decision very quickly to get the expression. One way to get rid of the people during the shot would be to try and move quickly a few steps to the right or left. I guess if you got desparate you could Photoshop out the extra people...but then there is still the matter of the ill-fitting bikini bottom.

[DJ-S1]

http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/lol8.gif Well, I must say that I saw this woman in person and her bikini fit her quite well indeed. I believe there may be a, um, "wedgification" going on here? I'm not sure what level of perfection we must hold female swim attire to in real life. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/icon10.gif

As for the horizon, I tried it without and I ended up liking it better this way. Maybe a bit more sense of distance, I don't know.

I would have preferred no surfers, but it was a surfing beach and there were tons of 'em. I was lucky to get so few, but still I see your point.

Thanks for the comments. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/thumb.gif

[rutt]

I see a couple of things:

It suffers from my worst problem: aiming high. I'd much rather see more of that great refliection on the wet sand than all that water and the narrow band of sky.
I wish the camera were lower, at least level with her waist.


If the camera had been low enough, you could have kept the focal plane perpendicular to the horizon. I think her proportions would be more pleasing if you did that.

You can easily clone out most of the distracting elements in the water. Perhaps you can do something about the angle with some of the new PS/CS 2 tools. You probably can't recover the reflection. If you had all of the reflection, it would make the shot.

[Steve Cavigliano]

FWIW, I agree with Rutt. Having just come from his POTD thread, the first thing that hit me when I saw your "beach girl" was that it also suffered from the "aiming high" syndrome :uhoh I totally agree that including more of her reflection, at the expense of the top portion, would make a much more pleasing pic.

The people in the BG are a bit distracting. A slightly different perspective would have fixed that. Please don't feel bad about this. Rutt admits to having an "aiming high" problem and all too frequently I, and many others, suffer from the dreaded "messy background" issue :rolleyes

I like the pic and the subject is very interesting :wink

Steve

[DJ-S1]

Please don't feel bad about this. I don't, or I wouldn't have offered it up here. I appreciate all of your comments, it really helps me.

I think I need to work on my sight; that is, I need to really SEE what's in the finder. I know I was rushed snapping this, but honestly I don't recall noticing the reflection so I didn't realize I was cutting it off. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/umph.gif

[Steve Cavigliano]

but honestly I don't recall noticing the reflection so I didn't realize I was cutting it off. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/umph.gif
Geeze DJ, what else could you have been looking at? :lol3 :lol3 :nono

Steve

[DJ-S1]

Yeah, I was like http://daveorama.smugmug.com/photos/6141441-L.gif, http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/eek7.gif, and http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/shocked2.gif for a few days. Discreetly, of course. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/icon10.gif


But this was the only shot of someone I didn't know. I'm not looking for any trouble!

What do you think of the coloring? I was disappointed with the straight-off-the-camera look, it was very washed out. Very harsh lighting though.

[DoctorIt]

Yeah, I was like http://daveorama.smugmug.com/photos/6141441-L.gif, http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/eek7.gif, and http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/shocked2.gif for a few days. Discreetly, of course. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/icon10.gif


But this was the only shot of someone I didn't know. I'm not looking for any trouble!

What do you think of the coloring? I was disappointed with the straight-off-the-camera look, it was very washed out. Very harsh lighting though.for a beach shot, one of my first thoughts was at how little washing out there actually was. the foam in the water is really it. your subject has a rather nice coloring...
:evil

[Steve Cavigliano]

DJ,

I agree with Doc on the color. She looks real good and judging by how she's shading her eyes, it looks like you were pretty close to shooting into the Sun. I'm surprised the scene wasn't washed out more :D

Steve

[DJ-S1]

Thanks - I made an overlay layer to pump it up a bit. I wasn't sure if I had gone too far with it.

[rutt]

Well, actually, I think you can do a lot better with the color here with very little effort. I only had the jpeg to work with, but I was able to do quite a lot.

First, what about that blown form on the edge of the surf and places at the edge of the woman?

I used highlight/shadow to recover some of these highlights:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/33527966-L.jpg

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/33527985-S.jpg

OK, now the girl looks too sunburned, right? I measured her and the numbers are actually plausible for sunburn, but that right arm is definitly a lot more red than in the original.

I used all powerful LAB curves to sooth the burn and make the ocean more blue while I was at it.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/33528075-L.jpg

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/33527877-S.jpghttp://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/33527976-S.jpg

I might have taken this a little too far, but you get the idea. Flatten the warm side of the A and B curves less to keep more color in her skin. Flatten the warm side of the A curve more than the B curve and you get less magenta. Use the color sampler to check the CMYK values and keep it plausible.

Now sharpen (I didn't) to show of the recovered detail and you'll have made a big improvement.

[DJ-S1]

Hey Rutt, I was hoping you'd chime in. Your version looks good. The only thing I might not like is the main part of the ocean, something looks a bit funky there but overall it is a big improvement.

I have a bunch of your tutorial pages bookmarked for when I get a chance to dive in and give LAB curves and your sharpening techniques a go. Now I've got one more! :D

Thanks!

[DJ-S1]

So I took some of the suggestions and worked up a new version. Any better or worse?

http://daveorama.smugmug.com/photos/33626816-L.jpg

[DoctorIt]

the background cleanup and crop are nice :thumb

[rutt]

On the right track, but you left her pretty sunburned. This would be a great time to try playing with LAB curves. Can fix this very fast, as I showed above.

[SnapTheFrog]

What was it, in the moment, that made you want to take the picture? Other than the activily spoken of rear, nothing caught my eye, at first.
I did notice the relfection of the girl in the sand and it made me wonder how a shot of only her reflection would have come out.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind; I borrowed your picture and experimented with it. I'm pretty fearless when it comes to cropping, so taking a cue from the focus of others comments, I came up with this.
http://SnapTheFrog.smugmug.com/photos/33944143-L.jpg

I cropped just below the more pronounced string of the left of the waste because I felt it distracted from the, uh, subject matter and told too much story. I thought about Photoshopping out the arm, but I liked how it humanized the person and steered it away from a wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-more shot. Instead, it's more of a The Little Bikini That Couldn't.

[DJ-S1]

Thanks Eric, the surfers needed to be gone. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/nod.gif

Rutt, I may not be ready to dive into LAB, but at least I can try to understand what you and Baldy have posted in the past about using the RGB values to make sure skin tones are reasonable. Thanks, and I WILL get to LAB and to advanced sharpening one of these days!

Frog, I assure you that my intentions were entirely honorable! http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/icon10.gif Actually we were getting ready to leave the beach and I saw her, and it just struck me as a natural beach scene. She was searching for a friend out in the water, shielding her eyes from the sun. Seemed like a good photo op to me. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/ne_nau.gif As I said earlier, I didn't see the reflection at the time so I couldn't frame for it.

So having said all that, your crop kind of gets away from the thought I had for the image, but thanks for the comments and the effort. http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/thumb.gif

[SnapTheFrog]

DJ, I'd never think of questioning your motives. http://digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/xzicon_smile_cool.gif

Photographs talk to all of us differently. I'm new here, but after I post a few snaps, you won't be wondering what the picture was saying to me, more like what language it's talking in. http://digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/yelrotflmao.gif

Thanks for being cool about my crop.