- This topic has 14 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 10 months ago by
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I’ve posted a picture of a daffodil that my brother took with his compact camera. He is open to any comments that you may have for his picture.
Specs:
Camera: MiCam (waterproof)
3687 x 2765 pixels
f/2.8
1/500 sec.
ISO-400
focal length: 8 mmAttachments:
I’m not sure how much downsizing decreased the quality, but it looks to me a bit fuzzy. But, like I said, it may have been caused by downsizing.
As far as camera settings go, I would turn the ISO down as far as it will go, and lower the shutter speed to compensate. with sush a short focal length, camera shake shouldn’t be a problem.
For composition, a natural background would be nice, the railing in the background is kind of distracting. But as far as where to put the flower and at what angle, I’m no pro at comosition so I hope someone else will give you advice on that.
If he can reshoot that is a big bonus, as you can see from the lady slipper critique I started a little while ago. It’s nice to be able to reshoot until you get just what you’re looking for. Good luck! =)
- This reply was modified 55 years, 5 months ago by .
Great tips, @austinvinar. I can tell you have experience with flowers.
Daffodils are so great because they are so colorful! A comment on Austin’s comment about shutter speed . . . you do have to take subject movement into consideration as well.
As for composition, read my comments from About the Shot: May 2015 and the quick tip in Flower in the Forest, two good articles on the same picture.
Learn other great flower tips from from my experience in About the Shot: May 2012, Pic of the Month: April ’12, and Mistakes Don’t Always Turn Out Badly. Flowers are great subjects to write about! So much you can do with them.
Unfortunately, my brother couldn’t go out for a reshoot because that particular flower had already withered several months ago. Furthermore, it would have been impossible to create a better backdrop for the daffodil since the flower was situated right in front of the fence, facing the observer. However, I’ve tried to edit the picture to reduce some of the distracting elements. I created a subtle bokeh to the picture using HDR Efex Pro 2 from the Google Nik Collection.
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Well, most distracting elements are now gone, but the effect is not really natural. A true bokeh will blur the fence behind the flower also, thus ”detaching” the flower from the background.
Do you have GIMP?Yes, @mr-quebec, I do have GIMP, but I’ve got no idea how to use it.
Yes, @mr-quebec, I do have GIMP, but I’ve got no idea how to use it.
Well, that’s a problem that can be fixed with an investment of time! 🙂 I have written a few short tutorials which can be found here: http://snowflake.nfshost.com/web/gimp-tutorial/remove-color-cast-gimp.html (The menu on the right top shows all of them)
And just today I came across a tutorial for some of the basics of GIMP which you can find here: http://www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/post-processing-with-gimp/introduction.html
The reason I asked if you had GIMP is because GIMP has a nice tool for blurring the background. Here’s how I blur bokehs in my pictures. As I said earlier, I learned a lot with trial-and-error, so this method might not be the best one, but at least it works for me! Everybody on Lenspiration, feel free to correct me! 🙂
Step 1: Open your picture with GIMP. Don’t forget to work on a copy of your original picture is case something goes wrong or you are not satisfied with the results!
Step 2: Enable the quick mask. It’s the tiny button with dotted lines located on the lower left corner. You’ll see your picture tinted pink. Don’t be afraid, everything is alright!
Then click on the eraser on your tool box (if it doesn’t shows up on your screen, you can open it pressing Ctrl+b). Once you have your eraser, erase all the pink from your picture except your flower (erase only your background). If you ever erase part of the flower, just press Ctrl+z and retry. You’ll want to use different sizes of erasers for doing a nice job. Just double-click your eraser icon and move the second slider to the right if you want a giant eraser and to the left if you want a tiny one. Also, you may click on the magnifing glass on the tool box to make your picture bigger and be more precise.What you’ve done so far is to select a portion of the picture. There are other ways of doing this but the quick mask is probably the most precise. Once you have a part of your picture selected, you can use sharpening, selective coloring, etc., only to the portion you’ve selected.
Step 3 : On the top bar, click on ”Filters” (who is beside Tools). Then click on ”Blur”. Of the different types of blur, select the third one, ”Gaussian Blur”. Set your numbers so that the edges won’t be to hard-cut, and at the same time not too blurry so that the edges of your flower would loose sharpness. (Note : I use a French version of GIMP, so it is possible that the terms differ, if it’s not clear just ask and I will be glad to offer further explanation)
Step 4: Click again on the quick mask button. Your picture should lose the pink tint and have a dotted line around the flower. Go back to the ”Filters” on the top bar, click again on ”Blur” and again on ”Gaussian Blur”. Again, set your numbers so that it won’t look unrealistic, but at the same time enough to hide distracting elements.
Step 5: When you’ve finished editing your picture, press Ctrl+e. Hit ”Select the type of file” and select what type you want. I would recommend Jpeg, as it offers a greater compatibility.
Nice tutorial, @Mr-quebec!
I would just like to add a few quick comments/clarifications/screenshots. 🙂
First, to toggle the Quick Mask on & off you can use the keyboard shortcut
Ctrl + Qas well as clicking on the little button which is located here: (Highlighted in red)
Secondly, if you don’t want to have to undo when you accidentally “erase” something, use the “Brush” tool (Highlighted in blue above) to paint onto your quick mask. Black paints “on”, and white erases. So if you’re “erasing” with the white brush and you go too far, just switch the color to black, and you can paint back in the part that got erased. Pretty nifty, huh? 🙂
@mr-quebec, Your French is correct, here’s what I see with my US English version:
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Seems a bit grainy… The flower appears to be the subject, but it seems that the camera was more focused on the background. Using the rule of thirds might have also benefited the appearance. 🙂 Pretty flower!!
@mr-quebec, voilà la photo de la jonquille après que je l’ai corrigé avec le GIMP. Merci beaucoup pour les instructions détaillées. Elles furent très utiles. J’espère que la photo soit meilleure maintenant. Mon petit frère qui a pris la photo a dit que cela ressemble une image en relief (3-D). À mon avis, le GIMP est très bon programme pour faire ressortir le sujet de la photo. Corrigez mon français si j’ai tort, si vous plaît.
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(English will follow)
Bienvenue! Oui, à mon avis l’arrière-plan est beaucoup mieux maintenant. Toutefois, j’aurais peut-être mis le flou encore un peu plus fort.
Un détail que j’avais oublié: vous pouvez inverser la sélection en cliquant avec la touche droite de votre souris sur votre sélection et en allant sur ”Sélection” et ensuite ”Inverser” ou bien en cliquant directement sur Ctrl+I. De cette manière, vous pourrez aussi ajuster le contraste et la netteté de la fleur sans affecter le reste de la photo. En passant, excellent français! 🙂
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–You’re welcome! Yes, in my opinion the background is better now. However, I would have maybe increased the blur a little more.
One detail I forgot to mention: You can inverse the selection clicking on the right button of your mouse on your selection and then going on ”Selection” and ”Inverse” or by pressing Ctrl+I. Now you can adjust the contrast and sharpness of the flower without affecting the rest of the picture. By the way, excellent french! 🙂
- This reply was modified 55 years, 5 months ago by .
@mr-quebec, j’ai essayé corriger la même photo par brouiller l’arrière-plan davantage. Dites-moi ce que vous en pensez, s’il vous plaît. Merci.
@mr-quebec, I’ve tried to edit the same picture by blurring the background more. Please tell me what you think about it. Thank you.- This reply was modified 55 years, 5 months ago by .
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