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Hi,
I just recently started the photography course, and am really enjoying it!Here is a photo that I took today, and was wondering what what I could do to make it look better. I’m was messing around with color grading, and would like to learn how to do it better!
Thank you!
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Hi @windyknollgoldens, and welcome to the forums again!
All the photos appear to be very sharp, the poses are very nice, the background blur is fantastic, and oh, what a beautiful dog that is! Exposure is good too, with no blown highlights or important shadow areas too dark, and they are well edited too.
Two comments came to mind.
1. The first thing I thought when I saw the first photo was, “What are the squares in the background behind the dog?” I thought at first that perhaps you were photographing through a deer-X fence. But then I realized that it was probably just JPG compression or something, the quality setting being set very low when it was saved. I assume this is intentional, to prevent anyone from being able to use the photo for anything if it’s downloaded from online. The clear copyright and downsized pixel dimensions (1620×1080) help with that too. So, my only comment about that would be perhaps to not use quite so low a setting so it’s not quite the first thing that is noticed.
2. Direct sunlight works fine for this subject, but perhaps the photos would feel warmer and more appealing if they were taken a little closer to the edge of light vs in what appears to be the middle of the day. Right after the sun comes up over the trees in the morning, or an hour or so before it goes behind the trees in the afternoon.
Those are what came to mind for me for critique!
Did you use color grading on these photos at all?
Yes! I was playing around with color grading a little bit. I’d like to learn how to do it better. And the photos were exported at a lower quality because they were going on a website were the SEO worked best with smaller images (or something like that)
Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my photos!
Good. I haven’t worked with color grading much, but I can see a lot of potential in it for various effects. The way I use it is to create a more “nostalgic” feeling by making the dark areas warmer in tone, as well as shifting the black pixels to “very dark brown” pixels.
Attached is a photo I recently used color grading on (I don’t use it very often). The far left rendition is the original. Obviously underexposed. The middle one is edited normally. It’s not bad, but it looks too “normal” to me. Even though I love the composition and subject, it’s taken in the middle of the day. So I added a little “nostalgia” to it by adding warmth to the “Shadows” and coolness to the “Highlights”. Moving the sliders below the color circles changes how much of the color is applied to the pure white pixels or the pure black pixels. You’ll see when you experiment with it, but moving the Shadows slider to the right is turning the pure black pixels into warmer and increasingly lighter pixels, ie. very dark brown. With nothing pure black in the photo (and in this situation, nothing pure white . . . take a look at the histogram), then it looks kinda hazy, with a hint of sepia, thus “nostalgia”.
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