Critique My Photos - How to improve with Lightroom.

spraynpray

Yes, Matt Kloskowski is good.

FlowtographyBerlin

@Westendboy: It's been said, but again: You absolutely don't need an Eizo screen to fix something that's your (and only your) fault. That's like saying you need to get a Hassy because you think your photography isn't good.

Also, it's correct that you need a color-managed workflow for perfect results, but again: Start with getting the basics right before you invest too much effort (and money) in anything else. Heck there's even a trick in PS where you can recreate a grey-card method even if you didn't have one.

Correct white balance doesn't have anything to do with your screen, it's just one mouse click in your editing software. For 15 bucks, you can get the thing that you can click on – the grey card.

All the rest, you don't need, but the next thing that makes a huge difference and lets you feel safer is a calibration for your screen. Since your budget doesn't seem to be too much of a limitation, go for the Spyder. :-)

And one last thing: Understanding color is actually not that hard, so don't be afraid to dive into it.

safyre

Westendboy,

Curious to see what the original picture looks like, straight out of camera without all the lightroom adjustments you did. I see that you toned down the highlights and upped the shadows to create some sort of pseudo-HDR look, but it ends up destroying the tones of the image and makes it look very flat. Not to mention the oversaturation that others have said, plus it does look underexposed and the color temperature is way too blue.

Ok so when you normally take pictures of people and go about your editing process, the very first thing you need to ask yourself what kinds of emotion do you want your final image to portray? Under commercial standards, clients usually want photos of couples to portray happiness, warmth, and just good feelings in general. They also want the couple to be the main center of attention. When I see your photo, my feelings are as follows: dark, gloominess, cold, winter. See where I'm coming from? And all the oversaturation of colors in the picture completely overpowers the couple who are suppose to be the focus of the image.

As I've said before, if you want good inspiration for editing photos, go to your local newstand and look at magazines and how their photos are edited. From that point, the least costly way to learn is simply just experimenting by yourself with the different sliders until you feel like you have something similar. Yes, it requires trial and error and the beginning, but as long as you keep at it, and use great photos for inspiration, you will eventually get to that point, and your scope of understanding colors will improve as well.

Ironheart

The colormunki I linked to only calibrates displays. The colormunki photo costs like $500 but will also do printers. You can rent these from lens rentals and borrow lenses.
http://www.borrowlenses.com/product/ColorMunki_calibrator?source=auto-suggest

The most common mistake with monitors is cranking the brightness up to max or just two clicks down. This will cause you to make your photos too dull in order to compensate. Before making any other changes, crank that puppy down to about midway. Ideally the monitor should auto adjust for ambiant room light level, most residential lighting is pretty pathetic, so your monitor needs to be dialed down. In a commercial setting, or if you have a ton of light in your studio, you might come up to 3/4 brightness. Max brightness is for full sunlight.

spraynpray

The colormunki I linked to only calibrates displays. The colormunki photo costs like $500 but will also do printers. You can rent these from lens rentals and borrow lenses.
http://www.borrowlenses.com/product/ColorMunki_calibrator?source=auto-suggest

The most common mistake with monitors is cranking the brightness up to max or just two clicks down. This will cause you to make your photos too dull in order to compensate. Before making any other changes, crank that puppy down to about midway. Ideally the monitor should auto adjust for ambiant room light level, most residential lighting is pretty pathetic, so your monitor needs to be dialed down. In a commercial setting, or if you have a ton of light in your studio, you might come up to 3/4 brightness. Max brightness is for full sunlight.

For once I have to disagree with Ironheart. 100% agree about the brightness being too high on most peoples screens, but once set, it should not be adjusted or your results will vary when viewed on any other screen. If your room gets too bright, pull the curtains, dim the lights or whatever, but you should leave the screen set-up as calibrated.

Ironheart

@spray, no disagreement. I was talking about prior to, or in lieu of, calibrating the monitor properly. Specifically that's why I said "before making any other changes" and was also directed at WestEndBoy, since I bet his is maxed out :-). This gets you at least half the way there for better color rendering.

Agreed, once you calibrate you shouldn't mess with it. If you leave the colormunki connected all the time you can set it up to do auto brightness adjustments. You can even calibrate your display to show you how prints will appear in certain lighting conditions.

X-Rite Ambient Light Measurement – automatically determine the optimum display luminance for comparing prints to your display, based on a measurement of the lighting conditions where prints will be viewed.
X-Rite Ambient Light Smart Control – the intensity or amount of ambient light surrounding your workspace affects the way you perceive colors on your display. ColorMunki Display can compensate for this effect and provide the option to automatically adjust your profile or simply notify you as ambient light conditions change.

This is really just for getting that last 5-10%. Properly calibrating your screen even once, will get you close enough, and certainly better than never having done it.

WestEndBoy

Does anybody know if the Datacolor Spyder 4 Pro will perform the same functions as Ironheart is referring to?

I will order one of them tomorrow morning.

Ironheart

@PitchBlack,

Normally I would agree with you 100% but it seems as if WestEndBoy's photo's have been consistently blue-ish. This could be a simple brightness issue, but calibration certainly won't hurt. Monitors and laptop screens are all pretty good these days with the factory calibration, but it is possible to get one that is more out of spec than usual.

Starting with a grey card would at least tell you if it is far off or not.

spraynpray

I think PitchBlacks images are 'artistic' in so far as he manipulates the colours away from what came out of camera quite a lot. For sure though, his skin tones are kept good. For him to say he has never calibrated anything (as he is a pro) is surprising to say the least.

Sports

Many already know that some screens are properly calibrated from the factory and some are not (and at the same time of poor quality). If you buy one of the better screens, then you don't necessarily need to do your own calibration.
Dell U2713H - calibrated = more expensive (although neither IQ or price is in the Eizo league)
Dell U2713HM - NOT properly calibrated (and lower quality in general) = less expensive
Most cheap screens are impossible to get to the same level as the high-end screens, of course, as they are inconsistent on many parameters.

donaldejose

I agree with PitchBlack on this one. A color calibrated monitor is not the problem and calibrating his monitor wouldn't fix the problem. I took a look at Jeff's flicker photostream. Two things are apparent. 1. He likes strong colors, as do I. 2. There are lots of portraits with correct warm skin tones and only a few with skin too blue. If it was his monitor they all would be off and they are not. Just once in a while he gets too much blue in the skin. I notice some others here also get too much blue in the image once in a while. Photoshop elements has a one step Correct Skin tones in its Guided menue. That may be all that is needed when the blue face appears. In Lighroom I would try adjusting the color temperature slider towards warmer tones. However, the first step with that photo should be to increase the exposure. It is too dark. The second step should be to decrease the saturation. It is too unnatural. The third step is to deal with the skin colors. Once the first two steps are taken it will be easier to fix the blue in the skin.

Vipmediastar_JZ

I still calibrate my macbook pro mid 2012 non retina. There is diffrence in the before and after. Once it is complete it lets you compare sample images and one of the models is holding a colorchecker. I just installed yosemite from scratch and after calibration the skin tone on the model changed.

spraynpray

Many already know that some screens are properly calibrated from the factory and some are not (and at the same time of poor quality). If you buy one of the better screens, then you don't necessarily need to do your own calibration.
Dell U2713H - calibrated = more expensive (although neither IQ or price is in the Eizo league)
Dell U2713HM - NOT properly calibrated (and lower quality in general) = less expensive
Most cheap screens are impossible to get to the same level as the high-end screens, of course, as they are inconsistent on many parameters.

You speak as if calibration is a once only thing - it certainly is not. Screens age quite dramatically and need to be calibrated every six months. Doubtless others would say more frequently than that, but IME every six months is enough.

WestEndBoy

Ok, I have done some additional work on these and will follow with some posts and comments.

First, I am posting the original image with no post-processing.

WestEndBoy

Now I have re-processed the image:



I made the following adjustments:

Global:
-changed white balance from 4250 to 4450
-exposure -1
-highlights -57
-shadows +83
-whites +24
-blacks -29
-saturation +42
-red saturation -5
-orange saturation -27
-green saturation +78

Local:
-him, her not including shirt
--exposure +1.4
-her shirt
--saturation -26
-her face
--clarity -40
-her teeth
--saturation -60
--exposure +0.4
-around her eyes
--exposure + 0.41
--clarity -33
-under her eyes (this needed a double dose)
--exposure + 0.41
--clarity -33
-her eyes
--exposure + 0.35
--clarity +10
--saturation +40
-around his eyes
--exposure +0.25
--shadows +59
-under his eyes
--exposure +0.25
--shadows +100

WestEndBoy

My comments to the various users comments, which are much appreciated:

Generally, my intention was to seek input regarding the local adjustments. While I do like colour, I had not fine tuned the saturation yet, as it was based on adjustments that I had applied to a batch and not fine tuned. I did not bother cropping. I also did not pick a pose I was particularly happy with, as I did not want to fool around with a photo that I wanted to keep. Had I appreciated how deep the commentary would have become, I would have approached this differently.

Regarding colour. I appreciate all of the comments. My monitor was too bright. I have turned it down. I am wondering if the image looks a little dark or just right to you guys. I will make further adjustments based on your feedback.

Regardless of whether I have a colour problem or not, there is an opportunity here, so I purchased the X-Rite Colormunki Display and Colour Checker Passport. My current photography class is "Practical Lighting", an introductory class at the local college. They are making us use Sekonic light meters. I think to myself, there is already one in the camera, why would I bother with that. The short answer, it is a photography class, I am there to learn and this forces me to consider all the technical aspects of exposure. That same thinking, in addition to solving any problems that I might have, informed my thinking on the Colormunki.

PB_PM, I darkened the whole image and lighted the subjects with the Lightroom Adjustment brush as described above. Seemed easier.

Elvishefer, I am looking to aquire a herd of 18 year old "female" models. That is why I enrolled in a photography program. Some girls get really silly when they think you are a photographer. I am particularly looking forward to the "Nude Photography" course. And for you girls reading this, it goes the other way. In a class we had a couple of weeks ago, we broke into groups of four. One group was four girls and their model was an athlete from Sochi. They dressed him in a very skimpy roman style loincloth.

OK, now I have to be serious...................

Spraynpray, I did have a medium sized reflector on hand and used it, to camera right. I also purchased a full body length reflector (silver and white) to improve in this area.

Rx4Photo, I agree with you on the blue tone. I changed white balance from 4250 to 4450. I would be interested in comments. Regarding her teeth, I admit that I am struggling with those. Next year is my Photoshop year, so there is room to grow..........

Tcole1983 - Yup, dark. Nothing to do with my personality........

Sevencrossing, I have a grey card and more coming with the Colourmunki setup. I am looking forward to fooling around with that.

Pitchblack, right to the point. Much appreciated. Do you still think it looks unnatural?

FlowtographyBerlin - great comments, though I was not thinking of those issues when I posted this. You are right, the pose sucks.

Regarding the colours, I do admit to loving colours. I often find myself admiring backgrounds after first looking at the subject. Guilty as charged. However, regarding the Cyan. That was out of my control (I will not describe the extent to which I went to control it). A different topic for a different thread. I will only say that I am blessed with a pretty and fashionable wife. Still have to work on my 8 year old, but he is receptive.

Sports, the monitor was at 100% brightness. I have turned it down to 50% and will play with it further.

VIPmediastar, thanks for your continued good input.

continued

WestEndBoy

continued


KnockKnock. I am not sure guts is the issue. Maybe I am just dumb.......

Regarding what can be done in capture vs post. I agree. Better control over the light would have saved my brightening up the subjects with the adjustment brush. As I said above, I did have a medium round reflector in this shot. I have purchased a 48" by 72" rectangular white and silver reflector. I also had my two SB-910s and pocket wizards with me along with a medium white reflector I can shoot through to diffuse the light. I should have used that.

Msmoto, cropping can certainly turn a loser into a real winner. Also, I can think of numerous shots that I have made over the last year that I can now salvage just because of the adjustment brush.

I would approach this image differently based on the discussions in this thread, but I just want to speak to Msmoto's point on how increasing one's skills in Lightroom and Photoshop (next year for me) can save a mediocre image.

The flower basket, starting just above her head, was in a dark shadow prior to a using the adjustment brush with exposure at +1.26 and a 88 feather setting.



I look forward to everybody's comments.

Vipmediastar_JZ

You are welcome.

One thing to note is that the colormunki measures the light/lux in the room and will adjust your monitor brightness. I usually do the advanced mode and with an external monitor vs the MacBook there is slight more control and I usually never get the reading in the middle. Just an fyi in case you run into the same scenario.

I used to calibrate weekly but now I just do it monthly buT if I go to a different room or different light I just have it rebuild the profile.

Enjoy your new tools.