My best girl

[John Cowie]

Hi Guys, wondering if this is still active? I have a photo I could use some suggestions on. It's another shot of my girl Skittles, and I like the composition, but the image seems harsh to me. It just seems this should be softer, but I don't know how to get it there.

There's issues from Lightroom I recognize - the banding on the vignetting I've added - I can't get rid of it. However, it's still SKittles that doesn't seem soft enough.

Something I'm doing wrong shooting it???

[Noel_Carboni]

Of course the forum is still active.

You're shooting with pretty harsh light here... It's unidirectional, which yields hard shadows. Bounce it around, and/or get several light sources.

Also, this image has some motion-blur in it, I'm guessing from Skittles moving while the shutter was open. There's no exposure info in it that I can read, so I don't know your shutter speed. I don't know if you've tried to sharpen the image digitally to compensate, but a furry pup (or cat) looks best if you can manage to avoid motion-blur. Bounced/diffused flash could be better for an image like this.

I assume you're seeing the banding in the gradient at the lower-left... Are you starting with a raw file or JPEG? Are you converting the image to 16 bits per channel? I'm not that familiar with LightRoom but posterization (the tech term for such banding) can occur when an image is processed in 8 bit mode. It's also possible it's just such smooth data that the process of displaying it in 8 bits (inevitable) is resulting in the banding. Sometimes a tiny bit of noise in the data is actually helpful in avoiding this.

-Noel

[John Cowie]

Sorry Noel, did it again....

Image was shot hand-held at 1/160 & f/3.5, ISO 50. Focal length was 70mm.

I shoot camera raw, and Lightroom is set to edit at 16 bits. I did no pull it into Photoshop, but even that is configured to edit at 16 bits. So, I'm not sure why I'm getting that banding.

By harshness I wasn't referring to the lighting. I actually chose to shoot it in hard light with sharp transitions between diffuse and shadow areas. I guess harshness was a bad choice of words.

Comparing this shot with the first one I posted of Skittles (shot in the same session) it seems her face is not "as soft" in the diffused areas. I went back and played in Lightroom with the tone curve, and used a neat little feature on the tone curve - turned on a tracking switch, then put the cursor in the diffused area and pulled down. It lowered the curve in the "Lights" and 'Darks" areas. This is moving in the right direction, which means The areas I'm concerned about are a bit overexposed?



The banding I'm still trying to figure out..

Here's a question - is there a way to post the updated photo in a reply without first uploading it into my member gallery? When you guys take an image, play and post it back, how'd you do that???

[Dennis_Vied]

Originally Posted by John Cowie

Here's a question - is there a way to post the updated photo in a reply without first uploading it into my member gallery? When you guys take an image, play and post it back, how'd you do that???

Sure. When you click the Quick Reply button, below the reply box is a button, "Go Advanced." That brings up a screen, below which you'll find a button, "Manage Attachments." You can use that to upload an attachment to the message. Note that there are limits to file sizes, so if you don't pare down the file yourself, you're at the mercy of the forum software which will pare it down for you. I like to size my pictures myself before uploading, just so if it's bad, it's my fault.

[John Cowie]

Thanks Dennis!

Quick update - I went into Lightroom and removed the vignette, then opened the file in Photoshop. I added a layer above filled with black, used marquee to lay out the shape of the vignette, feathered @ 200 and applied a mask. The gradient had worse banding than lightroom did. I verified the file came in as 16 bit....