Do you mean "post them to my portfolio and..." or "post them to threads asking for feedback and..."?
I suppose I'm one of the "popular ones", but even when I DO post shots to the forums I frequently receive relatively little feedback on them, despite many hits. Some recent images I have posted to the forums:
24 views, 0 comments
79 views, 0 comments
117 views, 2 comments
176 views, 6 comments, 5 favorites (one of the comments is yours)
So, speaking as a "popular" photographer (191 times a "favorite photographer", photographs selected as favorites 455 times), I'd have to say that for the most part what you are describing is normal right across the board. And I'd add to that; if you post a truly outstanding, evocative image you WILL recive a number of comments (see the last one above) but if you are posting work-in-progress, so to speak, it's unlikely you'll receive much feedback no matter who you are.
It seems to be a crapshoot. That said, point me at a couple shots you want critiqued and I'll take a stab at them for ya :-)
Well i don't post often and I don't have a portfolio. I posted in a thread.
Ah well. No big deal really. I just wanted some feedback since it's the first time I've done anything manually.
oh and here are the pictures
I usually just use the settings on the camera. But I tried to do things manually remembering what other settings were when doing so- if that makes sense!
Well i don't post often and I don't have a portfolio. I posted in a thread.
Ah well. No big deal really. I just wanted some feedback since it's the first time I've done anything manually.
Right, you don't have a portfolio, so I can't just pull up an image of yours and comment to it. That's why I asked you to point me at some :-) For sure, though, the more-commented-upon images will be ones that "live" in the DPC portfolio space. Only makes sense.
Meanwhile, I am here, now, and willing to serve; take advantage of me willya?
Meanwhile, how about YOU post a self-critique here if you can, telling us what these images have in common and their strengths and/or weaknesses in YOUR eyes?
Meanwhile, how about YOU post a self-critique here if you can, telling us what these images have in common and their strengths and/or weaknesses in YOUR eyes?
R.
Okay, well the first one is too dark in my opinion. And the glare on the bottom of the turtles shell is distracting. I guess the coloring in general is kind of blah.
The snake was actually behind glass and I actually thought that one turned out pretty good. I did crop out the left side because you could see someone reflection in it.
I think the ducks could use some brightening up or something. Not as colorful as they looked in person. The focus might be a little soft but I was pretty shaky yesterday after 4 cups of coffee and did not carry my tripod- 2 kids, pregnant mama with us equals no tripod lol.
Alright, first let me say that these are difficult images to work with (we'll get to why), but the turtle and the ducks have a problem in common; it's not so much that they are "dark" as that they have a real figure/ground problem; the ducks, for example, just aren't separating from the BG and they are of such a similar texture, color to it that is difficult to separate them at all. You might argue this is as it should be (camouflage and all that) but it doesn't make for a very exciting image.
So, without putting a lot of time into it (the image is so small, so low-resolution that it is difficult o make clean selections), I have selected out the ducks and saved that selection, then gone to work separately on the ducks and their surround:
This is very clumsily done, a very compressed image, so there is some blocking and artifacting, but you get the idea; I have brightened and saturated the ducks. I have somewhat desaturated, darkened, and blurred the surround. I have added vignetting through use of a radial gradient. This is quick and dirty, mostly because one would need to work with the full-size image to do it properly, but you can see that with some expenditure of time and effort it is possible to improve the image's visual "pop" a significant amount.
All this depends on your learning, first of all, how to make a clean selection of complex objects. A lot of the time what youw ant to select is of a different color from the rest, and it's relatively easy to do, but in this case "selecting" involves actually DRAWING a selection with the lasso tool.
Another approach (many people use it) is to make an alpha mask layer and paint your selection on it, but I have never worked this way (I keep meaning to try it) and so can't advise you on that. Anyway, you might try something like what I've done on the turtle and see what you can come up with.
Robt.
Here's another, very different approach:
This one invloved using a glow action of the BG of the multi-layered original file I am working from. I don't know how you'd glow in PSP, but the rest of what I did is doable in PSP.
Wow! Thank you for the lesson:o) I don't know much about editing and I didn't really do much with these. I think I'll go play now and if you don't mind I'll come back with what I come up with.
ummmm, i'm an editing idiot lol. I'm lost. Did you use a pen or a mouse to do the selecting? I only have a mouse and the ball is not so great even after cleaning it.
Either way I'll work with it and see if I can even come remotely close to what you have. That will probably be impossible though since I'm still an infant when it comes to the editing side of things!
Another approach (many people use it) is to make an alpha mask layer and paint your selection on it, but I have never worked this way (I keep meaning to try it) and so can't advise you on that.
Do this in combination it a Wacom tablet (on sale -- see thread) you will almost never use a selection tool for masking again.
Plus, if you just save your selections, you can use the two methods completely in concert; I typically start my mask by drawing a rough selection with the lasso an filling it, then painting in the small space between the pre-filled area and the object edges.
By using soft-edged brushes of various sizes you can control the degree of feathering locally, unlike using the Feather command on a selection.
As the old commercial went, try it -- you'll like it!
Plus, if you just save your selections, you can use the two methods completely in concert; I typically start my mask by drawing a rough selection with the lasso an filling it, then painting in the small space between the pre-filled area and the object edges.
By using soft-edged brushes of various sizes you can control the degree of feathering locally, unlike using the Feather command on a selection.
As the old commercial went, try it -- you'll like it!
That's essentially what I do anyway, and of course I'm well aware that a mask and a selection are basically the same thing fundamentally. What I do (rememeber, I started with PS as a graphic artist, not as a photographer; actually, started with Illustrator then added PS to the repertoire basically) is convert my selections to paths and use the bezier curves to fine-tune them. This is very natural for me, since I began working in Illustrator actually DRAWING things with bezier curves, but I recognize that these are alien to most people, completely counter-intuitive.
But anyway I got the tablet coming, so I'll be exploring new ways of working soon :-) Your input has been very useful to me.
