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I realise that sometimes (well most) your own childrens pics are only speciel to the parent and not particularly interesting for all else.

But I wanted to share this pic. As I have been getting less and less satisfactory results with my pictures, then this jumps out(to me).



Still some will say its just a picture of some guys kid; which it is; but this has returned hope to my ability to take some sort of memory.

One of my goals for the D70 hobby is to record the memory of my children , cause pictures are timeless. Hopefully I'm on the right track.

It is a little less dramatic when resized and not as sharp, but it shows that even I can fluke it sometimes.

I was going to crop it closer to her eyes, but I dunno ....

It was taken with the d70 and 50 1.8 f4 1/60 +4 contrast in PSCS2

Feedback is appreciated

MATT

Matt,

And that is what it's all about.

If you're satisfied, and with images like this, what else matters?

Matt
I agree with Gary here, if the pics appeal to you, that is the be-all-and-end-all. There's no point trying to please somebody else.

A magnificent photo which I'm sure you will cherish for many years to come. Some slight PP work could be done to enhance what is already there, but the photo is what it is - a great memory !

As a Father of Twins, I can tell you now, keep the D70 handy, fully charged and don't be afraid to just take photos. It's been my experience that some of the better one's have come from times when I've seen the bubbs doing something interesting and just ran for the camera and let off a series of shots. If they don't turn out, you hit the DELETE button. The more you practise, the better you become and before long, you will have many "keepers", which you will want to print, frame and hang proudly on the walls of your home....

Matt - I am of an age when memories of my childhood are disappearing and, unfortunately, photographs of that time in my life do not exist.

The moral - shoot, shoot and shoot - give your children and there children a pictorial heritage of the early years

Just make sure you reguarly get your photos printed. It's very easy to "get around to it one day", but if you ever loose the digital image, it could be a disaster

Great shot Matt. Worth every cent you ever spent on the camera gear.

Thanks for the feed back,

Tommo, yes thats something I am guilty of , I was thinking of doing a year inreview of the kids and maybe get a momento style book printed each year, one for us and one for each of the grandparents.

Aussie dave- I dont know alot about PP I did a slight contrast bump. But what else could I do? I am using an uncalibrated LCD so anm not sure whats showing on others monitors.

sirhc55- I'm not going to touch the age thing, but I do enjoy when the older members post negs or scans of before I was born.

Thanks again

MATT

MATT wrote:Aussie dave- I dont know alot about PP I did a slight contrast bump. But what else could I do? I am using an uncalibrated LCD so anm not sure whats showing on others monitors.

On my cruddy work monitor it's a bit dark and not quite as warm as I'd like myself.

Natural expression, skin tone, composition AND emotional ties make this a great photo- ditto to Gary's comment Matt.
cheers
marco

What a cutie Matt - well done... print it out and enjoy it everyday !!!!
That's what photos are for - OUR enjoyment, not anyone elses, and to show our kids and our kids kids their own history.
Rel

Chris
Perhaps you were a notably unattractive child?

Matt
As I looked at the image I formulated the same respone as Gary. I was going to write...That's what it's all about strange...but true. If you think it has value now....wait until you go through your pics in 35 years time and try and put a value on them.

Matt. K wrote:Chris
Perhaps you were a notably unattractive child?

If you have ever seen Gimme Gimme Gimme then you will know that I was gorgeous

MATT wrote:Aussie dave- I dont know alot about PP I did a slight contrast bump. But what else could I do? I am using an uncalibrated LCD so anm not sure whats showing on others monitors.

MATT

Hi Matt
hope you dont mind me playing around with your image, if you'd like it removed please let me know and I shall do so.

Just a quick 2 minute job (with my uncalibrated LCD monitor at work)

Your version:


My PP'd version:


The PP I did from your posted pic above was:
- added Contrast +18
- added a curve adjustment (128 to 135 and 209 to 222)

I feel the face looks much brighter and really stands out from the photo....IMO

What do you think....??

Wow, Dave it does realy jump out. No I dont mind you doing it . In fact I 'll go and play now.


How do know what to do with the curves? Is it just a feel thing? Adjusting whilst looking at the pic until you like it?

Thanks again to all for you feed back it is appreciated.

Tommo I took a your advice and printed some on my r310 epson. I did a bit of black and white conversion and croping to 10x8, bought a frame from Crazy Clarkes



I will revisit the images , with Daves tweaking. Maybe go back to colour!!

MATT

Great one Matt, that framing is fantastic. It will look magnificent hanging on the wall !

As for the curves etc. I guess it is sort of a feeling thing. Whatever appeals to you & makes the image look better. Everyone's tastes are different so their PP methods will reflect this.

Briefly, if you imagine the straight line in the curves tool goes from bottom left (which is white) to top right (which is black), there are 255 points in between. 128 is halfway and is considered as mid-tone. Bumping this mid point up or down (in my case above I went 128 to 135, which effectively brightens all the mid-tones of the image. The higher up the line you go (closer to 255), the more the darker/shadow areas will change (ie. 190 to 195 will brighten the dark areas a bit - while 190 to 185 will darken the dark areas a bit). Does this make sense ??

If you have a play around, you will soon begin to see what affect each part of the curve will have on the photo. After a while, you start with doing basic things to the curve (like changing the 128 point up or down) and from there you can play around to give you the desired affect.

It's a VERY powerful tool. Next time, we'll discuss LEVELS adjustments....

Shoot, print and share. Great memories. Good shots.

We have just 1 picture of me as a baby, just 1! And what a good looking kid I was. It was all downhill from birth!

Just love those eyes.

Keep up the great work.

Dave, It does make sense.

Some of the PP stuff seems a little overwhelming at times.

If you could do levels in plain English like the curves that would be great.

As for the framing I ended up at black and white. I seem to like that better hanging on the wall. However the process to convert
seems like a 100 different ways. Lab mode seemed very long , normally I just desaturate and adjust contrast to suit. But thats for another topic another day.

Thanks again

MATT

OK...Levels...

Firstly, I will post THIS LINK to a good tutorial on Levels Adjustment, but will briefly touch on it before you read it.

The Levels window will show you the RGB Histogram (similar to the one you can view on the back of the D70). Along the bottom axis, from left to right, it displays Black (0) to White (255). Just below this are 3 triangles that you can slide, which manipulates the histogram accordingly.

Basically, the "black-point" slider (the one on the left) determines where absolute black starts, the middle slider, where mid-tone is & white slider where absolute white is. By default, these are at 0, 128 and 255. However, quite often, the histogram may not reach all the way to the right, if you have slightly underexposed the scene OR the contrast of the scene does not have any 255 (pure white) values. As with your original photo posted, the photo looks kind of washed out and lacking contrast. This is usually a dead giveaway that the histogram is falling short of the 255 mark.

To make the photo "come to life", all you need to do is slide the appropriate slider along until it meets where the ends of the histogram begin. The "whitest" part of your histogram may only go to 241. In this case, slide the white-point slider across to 241 and you should see a marked difference. The same can be done for the black-point. The mid-point can then be moved which will control the contrast (moving towards black will tell Photoshop that you want more tones between mid-grey & white (brightening up the scene), and vice versa.

In addition to all this, you can adjust the histogram for each colour channel (Red, Green & Blue - seperately (as opposed to doing the RGB channel, which is kind of a global change. I ALWAYS do the channels seperately as it is common for the values in each channel to be slightly different.

Hope this makes sense and if you read the link I have included above, that might makes things easier to understand.

If I have made any mistakes in my description above, please firgive me.....I'm tired and it's early

Dave thats probably the most clear description of of the levels I have read.

I now have lots of pics I will have to wade through and give these tips ago.

Thankyou for your time,It is appreciated.


MATT