PBase

to say: hallelujah!! now... who wants advice on composition???

I'm bad on composition...even worst on color.

I've read that it's bad to have someone wear black with a white background. But I've seen some shots and they seem to be good.

Cool--nice addition.

On composition when in doubt go back to the basics and the rule of 3's. If you look at a photograph and go wow, it usually conforms to those rules.

the emphasis to be; you will need to meter the black for the detail in the black to show up, if that's important to you. With a light background and a model dressed in black, I'd meter the face and maybe open up a stop..one thing about a set up photo is that you can always redo it..

gummyb wrote:I'm bad on composition...even worst on color.

I've read that it's bad to have someone wear black with a white background. But I've seen some shots and they seem to be good.

This forum is getting off to a bad start OK I'll be the first to ask a question.

If I am taking a picture where the subject is an evenly lite, solid color, textureless wall do I still need to follow the rule of thirds? Is it generally bad to center it in the frame? If so how do I know when I have committed this error?

gavia_immer wrote:This forum is getting off to a bad start OK I'll be the first to ask a question.

If I am taking a picture where the subject is an evenly lite, solid color, textureless wall do I still need to follow the rule of thirds? Is it generally bad to center it in the frame? If so how do I know when I have committed this error?

..

I'll follow up. I've been working with this shot trying to get the composition to behave. I can't find a rule of thirds that works for it. Either I chop off the water trough (which is the main subject) or loose the tree - which seems to balance the picture (for me). Is it broke? Or can we break the rule?

http://www.pbase.com/jengle/image/72305339

jengle wrote:I'll follow up. I've been working with this shot trying to get the composition to behave. I can't find a rule of thirds that works for it. Either I chop off the water trough (which is the main subject) or loose the tree - which seems to balance the picture (for me). Is it broke? Or can we break the rule?

http://www.pbase.com/jengle/image/72305339

I cropped your photo tighter and made the tree part of the leading lines to the trough. In addition, I used a levels layer to bring up the brightness and sharpened the trough and fence post and the rest of the photo in two steps (select main subject and sharpen, invert selection and sharpen less). Here's the result


here it is in black and white, which, while not the best (did it on PSE2) lets the elemental shapes dominate

good work for that B&W on this picture Jypsee

To jengle:
I tried another crop:


Steps:
1. crop square, this puts some extra emphasis on the trough and – together with the ttree – adds some height in the picture.
2. curve on the highlights to bring out the blue of the air. (to select highlights: press ctrl+alt+~ in Photoshop)
3. levels to correct slight under exposure and improve dynamic range
4. resize to 800x800 for web viewing and smart sharpen
5. convert to sRGB (shows the correct colours in web browsers)

Thanks - Great ideas - I especially like the b&w - but all are helpful. Jengle

I'm using an antique B&W style for my version:

Also, I'm figuring out how to reference pictures withing the forum... it's a learning process

[img]
http://www.pbase.com/jengle/image/72305339
[/img]

jengle wrote:Also, I'm figuring out how to reference pictures withing the forum... it's a learning process

add
.jpg
to the end of your link; and, it makes sense if you post at anything larger than 600 pixels on the longest side to add
/medium.jpg
to the end of your link; that way the photo isn't so large that it can't be viewed unless the user scrolls the page.