photo sharing and upload picture albums photo forums search pictures popular photos photography help login
Canon DSLR Challenge | all galleries >> Challenge 45: Creative Wide Angle (hosted by Gayle Knowles) >> Eligible > The Downward Spiral *
previous | next
04-JUL-2005 Jeannie M. Burleson

The Downward Spiral *

Canon EOS 20D ,Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
1/160s f/6.3 at 18.0mm iso200 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time04-Jul-2005 08:35:07
MakeCanon
ModelCanon EOS 20D
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length18 mm
Exposure Time1/160 sec
Aperturef/6.3
ISO Equivalent200
Exposure Bias
White Balance (-1)
Metering Modematrix (5)
JPEG Quality (6)
Exposure Programaperture priority (3)
Focus Distance

other sizes: small medium original auto
share
Guest 11-Jul-2005 01:15
Sorry for rambling, but I forgot to say that I think this image needs a simple sky, so as not to compete for attention, hence my suggestion of an almost single color sky here.
Guest 11-Jul-2005 01:12
BTW, the best way to "make" skies and clouds, is to "steal" from other images. I often need to add skies to photos and renderings at work, so whenever I see interesting skies and clouds and I have my camera around, I try to take some shots of just the sky (and preferably just including the horizon) for my "database/library".
Guest 11-Jul-2005 01:06
The sky looks better now, but I think I would like to see a more saturated blue sky here as the slide and T-shirt are both very strong and saturated colors. You could even try without a gradient. To make it more realistic looking you could add some noise (1% gaussian monochromatic noise, for example). When I commented earlier I should have added: Please don't take my opinion for being more true than anyone else's, especially your own!
Canon DSLR Challenge10-Jul-2005 05:30
Thank you both for the comments! How do you think the sky looks? I added a layer with Render->Clouds at 50% opacity just to soften the gradient. -- Jeannie (jburly)
Guest 10-Jul-2005 03:27
Here, coloring the sky would help. Bright areas pull the eye and hence it is pulled away from your subject in this shot. Making the sky blue would be simple: select the white sky. Make a nice sky blue foreground color and then make the background color white, by double-clicking on the foreground/background squares in the main tool box. Then use the gradient tool, dragging from the top of the image to the bottom.

Next, I'd suggest some slight "Levels" and "Contrast" adjustments: Levels adjustment layer: Input levels = (0, 1.00, 250) and +10 on Contrast in a "Brightness/Contrast" adjustment layer. After this I would do some selective brightening of the boys face by first making a feathered selection around his face (with the lasso tool and then Select>Feather) and then Levels, input levels = (0, 1.15, 255).

Finally I'd sharpen some - same settings as in the horse shot.

Compositionally, some would object to the boy's face being almost smack in the middle of the frame, but I don't find that such a big problem in this case.
Guest 10-Jul-2005 03:13
Jeanine, this is a cute photo with wonderful color. * i might crop it a bit tighter on the right to get rid of the dark background. it's a bit distracting.