Sculpture photo

[mercphoto]

I took this at Austin's Umlauf Sculpture garden. The camera was an Elan II and I used Ektachrome 100 slide film. It was later scanned with a Nikon slide scanner at 4000 dpi into 16-bit TIFF files. In other words, there is a lot of data to work with here.

Any thoughts on composition, lighting, improvements...

http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/photos/50734822-M.jpg

[DanielB]

i'm personally not a big fan of photos of art to begin with. so that may have something to do with my whipping. but, the left arm the highlight is kinda blown, i would have liked to not see her elbow cut off on the right. and maybe a little more negative space on the left would have been nice:dunno , plus not so much on the top. okay. i'm done whipping. i'll pass it to the next.

:whip

[DavidTO]

Start by setting a black point (http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1075277), it makes a world of difference for this shot.

Not sure why I like this image, but I do. There's plenty of rules that your shot doesn't follow, and I'm sure the compo could be improved...but once I set a black point on it, I liked it. Certainly worth playing and taking more shots of, IMO....

[1ibandit]

the left arm the highlight is kinda blown, i would have liked to not see her elbow cut off on the right. and maybe a little more negative space on the left would have been nice:dunno , plus not so much on the top. okay. i'm done whipping. i'll pass it to the next.

:whip

I agree with DanielB..

Now my whip..

Where are her boobs, you cut them off....Just kidding, but I do feel you could have lowered the shot just a tad. I think a step to your right to make it a more profile shot and that would have her left elbow in the picture. With that step keep the face the focus of the shot, and then both elbows would have been blurred. I am not sure if the step to the right would have helped the washout on the right arm, but maybe.

Thanks

[mercphoto]

Cool advice. I did a levels run and brought the black slider up, and the white slider down a touch. I also did a crop. I don't mind the left elbow being gone in the original, but I do think that the crop either needs to be more severe, or not cropped at all. I'm also not concerned with the slight blown spot on the right arm. Sometimes a blown highlight is good; whether this is an example of a good blown highlight is subjective.

Image deleted...see post below

[DavidTO]

Cool advice. I did a levels run and brought the black slider up, and the white slider down a touch. I also did a crop. I don't mind the left elbow being gone in the original, but I do think that the crop either needs to be more severe, or not cropped at all. I'm also not concerned with the slight blown spot on the right arm. Sometimes a blown highlight is good; whether this is an example of a good blown highlight is subjective.

Image deleted...see post below


Dang it, you completely drew me in, and I forgot where we were! There I was, posting IMAGES! (I deleted my post entirely....)

Well, this is the Whipping Post, and that's a nono. (Take a look at the rules, lined in my signature...)

What I will say is that the way that you got more blacks in your image is not the same as setting a black point, and I suggest you try at least once to do it the way it is done in the tute, see if you like it.

I agree about the framing issues...that's a lot of room up top. I guess it kind of works for me because she's looking up at the top left corner, which I find interesting, somehow....

[mercphoto]

What I will say is that the way that you got more blacks in your image is not the same as setting a black point, and I suggest you try at least once to do it the way it is done in the tute, see if you like it.
I do see a difference with your suggested method. I even tried it on one kart racing photo and liked what it did. It was subjective, because that particular image did indeed have a true black in it. I just created a new black, but the results were nice. Now, if I could only batch that... :(

Thanks for all the input on the photo. Sorry I posted an edited version.

[DavidTO]

Now, if I could only batch that... :(

Now there's a challenge...there should be a locate darkest pixel command, huh?

Thanks for all the input on the photo. Sorry I posted an edited version.

No worries. Just trying to keep the critique focused on the one image, standing or falling on it's own. Other forums are for PS iterations.