beansbaxter

I took this picture, and I was so upset that it looks so bad, in terms of color and clarity. What are some things I can do to make it turn out better, clearer, sharper, etc.

On the left side of the pic, there was a lamp giving off a lot of light so there is some bright things happening that I dont like. Their skin looks too warm, too much red. And the picture lacks depth and clarity, no real sharp focus to it.

Please - be brutal - what are some things that I can do to make it better.

I was using my Nikon 28-70 2.8 lens, no flash.

__________________
“The camera’s only job is to get out of the way of making photographs.”
-- Ken Rockwell

beansbaxter.com is my blog.

jezterr

turn off the harsh lamp.

looks more like a formal portrait so don't angle the camera (just because you're told it looks good in some pictures doesn't mean you can do it all the time). use a grey card. use a lower aperture to pull focus away from the bg, pull 'em farther away from the wall if needed. would've turned their bodies a little more towards the camera.

__________________

Motorcycle Man

What is a grey card?

__________________
All images shot using Olympus E500 Evolt, 8mp, kit lenses.

jezterr

grey/gray card helps with acquiring the proper white balance in different light situations, and can also be used to properly meter an image. it helps prevent images from being too blue or too yellow, and is much more accurate option than using the preset wb settings in your camera.

__________________

beansbaxter

Which grey card do you recommend? Which one does JayT have?

__________________
“The camera’s only job is to get out of the way of making photographs.”
-- Ken Rockwell

beansbaxter.com is my blog.

meignacio

It doesn't really matter what brand of gray card you use. I've used a plain piece of white paper before and it has worked very well.

jezterr

he uses the one i got him. 18%.

check your user manual for their recommendation.

white paper works also, but different kinds of white paper can have tinges of yellow or blue in it. recycled paper tends to be yellow. new paper blue.

__________________

JayT

Don't forget to use your custom WB when you use a grey card

__________________
JayTPhotos.com

JayT

Get the most expensive one. Those have magical photog powers.

__________________
JayTPhotos.com

JayT

Be conscious of shooting towards reflective items, like picture frames and silver/gold clocks.

__________________
JayTPhotos.com

ciao998

too much stuff in the background, and way way too much light from left. That picture is kinda hard to look at, lol. Looks like most of mine, Beans, lol...................JOhn

JayT

Hey! Wait a minute. At the MC show, I seem to remember you scoffing at me for using my grey card

__________________
JayTPhotos.com

beansbaxter

I know... cause I thought one only needed their white balance camera controls to make all those adjustments. Your pictures are consistently better than mine, especially in terms of color representation.

Do you use the grey card to just focus on before pressing your shutter on the intended picture? Or do you focus and shutter on the grey card, and then take a picture?

And often do you do this process, before groups of pictures or every one within a given setting?

__________________
“The camera’s only job is to get out of the way of making photographs.”
-- Ken Rockwell

beansbaxter.com is my blog.

JayT

take a pic of the grey card in the light you intend to shoot your object in. Then set that pic as your custom white balance setting.

If you're shooting in rapidly changing lighting, this becomes a pain.

__________________
JayTPhotos.com

jezterr

you have a nikon. he doesn't know.

read your manual.

__________________

Shooter

Or shoot RAW and don't worry about it.

I usually walk into where ever I am shooting, and if I have a minute and Custom tag the white balance off available light on a white object.
Anything that should be white to your eye, is what we use.
Table cloth is a big good one. Be sure to hit it where the light hit's clean, plus the mix of light from 2 different source's if that's the case.
I even go as far as shooting with gel over the Flash to match available light.
BUT, then again you could just RAW.

__________________
Later-
Kirk

peotimages.com

beansbaxter

So, if I took this picture in RAW, how much exceptionally better would it have looked. All RAW helps with is lighting and color, nothing else, correct?

__________________
“The camera’s only job is to get out of the way of making photographs.”
-- Ken Rockwell

beansbaxter.com is my blog.

jezterr

wrong. raw is more flexible for errors in temperature, sharpness, exposure, shadows, curves, etc. it gives you a larger margin for error.

doesn't mean you can half ass images, though.

__________________

Shooter

True, for me that's a given.

raw permits much greater control than JPEG for several reasons:

Finer control is easier for the settings when a mouse and keyboard are available to set them. For example, the white point can be set to any value, not just discrete values like "daylight" or "incandescent".
The settings can be previewed and tweaked to obtain the best quality image or desired effect. (With in-camera processing, the values must be set before the exposure). This is especially pertinent to the white balance setting since color casts can be difficult to correct after the conversion to RGB is done.
Camera raw files have 12 or 14 bits of intensity information, not the gamma-compressed 8 bits typically stored in processed TIFF and JPEG files; since the data is not yet rendered and clipped to a color space gamut, more precision may be available in highlights, shadows, and saturated colors.
The working color space can be set to whatever is desired.
Different demosaicing algorithms can be used, not just the one coded into the camera.



http://en.wikipedia

__________________
Later-
Kirk

peotimages.com