first paying job

[iDad]

(insert forest Gump voice)

Mama said " Digital Graphics is like a box of crayons in the hands of a child.
Ya never know, is it professional or is it playtime .....until you blow the stinking thing up":mrgreen: I couldn't leave the debate without saying anything now could I!:mrgreen:

 

[IamSam]

Tom, I respect your 2 cents worth.

I like the better lighting in the edit, but what I think is off is the lighting of the added grass in both the foreground beneath the feet and the background. It does not look real to me. As I stated, I exaggerated the effect in my example, it should be much more subtle. Either way, the gradation would add greater depth and believability to the edit.

I'm not trying to argue here or trying to be RIGHT............it's just an opinion.

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi Sam - I'm in transit with only my iPhone. Let me take another look at it tonight.

Hi Ego - any chance u would feel comfortable posting the full Rez versions of the orig + ur 2 edited versions?

T

 

[Inkz]

My guess is....

Ego may not post his second paid job. I actually think this topic was more of a Congratulations topic.

 

[IamSam]

Hummnnn......I have often wondered about the proper etiquette for these posts. I'm never really sure if critiques, good or otherwise, should be provided unless solicited by the OP. I think when an OP throws in images, it invites critiques. Maybe ego should not have posted the images. I also wonder what I would think had these images been one of me and my family? What is the professional standard for posting an edit that was paid for?

 

[egosbar]

no i can post it no problems , happy to have critique and would love too see the difference , i guess when you work with someone they in the end decide what the are happy with , the work will go back and forth with the clients comments once happy no problems , as it is its a nice image then the original i think but i see the lighting demo and maybe toned down a little i think it will ground them better , the guys right foot is the problem i dont think the others are too bad as both adults have one foot slitgthly off the ground but id still like too see the improvements

 

[ibclare]

In other circumstances, IDK the answer to your question Sam. But of course if it's OK with the client, especially being a personal rather than commercial work, it doesn't seem like a problem. Probably best to know beforehand if it's OK to make a private picture public though as egosbar has.

When it is for a company and considered proprietary work, the question of permissions is more important, though I don't know the exact legality. If an item is made for a paying client, such as a logo, company id, etc., they own the copyright unless they give you permission to use it in your portfolio. I think but am not sure on that. Possibly a lot of artists use this work for their portfolios. So I really wonder if there is such a restriction or not.

 

[egosbar]

i agree i should of asked the photographer but it was posted publicly so i dont think its a problem but one i should think of

its not like its provocative i wouldnt mind if it were me

took it down anyway , part of the learning process ill remember this next time

 

[Spectrum]

been playing with photoshop for about ten or eleven months now , a little shading would ground them ill have another look , the client loved the shorter grass version , i dont think they are floating too bad now ive looked maybe the guy i could burn a slight shadow

You will find over the next 3 years, your knowledge will expand hugely if you keep learning. 11 months - you're still a beginner in PS terms. You will find that at about the 3rd year, you really begin to have a deep understanding of the program, depending upon your rate of learning. Keep going, we were all beginners once.

 

[Spectrum]

In terms of legality, if you're in Australia, unless otherwise agreed upon, any images you shoot for a client for BUSINESS purposes (such as shots for a marketing flyer), are legally owned by you. Any shoot for a client's personal purposes (such as a wedding), the copyright is owned by the client.

Images freely available on the net are considered public domain, and you may edit them as you please, and put them wherever, but if you get a takedown notice from the photographer's lawyer, you must comply to avoid court (if they want to take it that far, but unlikely unless they live in the same country).

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi Ego -

It doesn't look like you uploaded a full rez version, so I did a quick and dirty tweak to illustrate the direction I would go in re-lighting the image. I intentionally over-emphasized the re-lighting effect for illustration purposes.

Also, if it were mine, I would likely add a slight vignetting to the edges to further emphasize the family. I didn't do it to this version because I didn't want to confuse the re-lighting effect with the vignetting effect, but I may post it separately.

T

 

[Tom Mann]

And here it is with a quick bit of burning the mids and highlights mostly around the edges to give a vignette effect.

Also, for easy comparison, I also included a copy of the original that I started from.

T

 

[egosbar]

You will find over the next 3 years, your knowledge will expand hugely if you keep learning. 11 months - you're still a beginner in PS terms. You will find that at about the 3rd year, you really begin to have a deep understanding of the program, depending upon your rate of learning. Keep going, we were all beginners once.

i do agree im still learning but a little above beginner id hope i just learn quick but i know in three years ill be pretty proficient at this program , i think ill always be learning , i guess some people learn quicker then others depending on the time they put in , ive put a lot of hours in and id think probably more then most will in 11 months , im about too watch all the video that i watched at the beginning from start to end again as it was just too much when you first start , now the videos will make so much more sense and im sure i will get a lot of benefit from it , its a daunting program too start but im pretty comfortable now and ready too go to another level , its a continual process and compared too some of the images that were posted on facebook as a fix my one was a long way ahead which is why he paid for it i guess , looking forward too the third year lol

 

[iDad]

Adobe is still learning the program, it's so vast that the possibilities are endless

 

[IamSam]

TomM, I don't think it's your fault because your working from a altered image where the subjects have been isolated from the original background and it's low res, but the image with the black and white border looks, more than ever now, like the subjects were added to the BG. Especially the legs and feet of the adults, the torso and arms of the male, and the entire little boy!

ego, feeling comfortable is a state conceived by oneself, it's not necessarily reflective of ones ability. On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) where do you rate your current Photoshop skill level?

 

[iDad]

To me it looks like the original is a manipulated image to start with. But low res can can be the culprit.

 

[Tom Mann]

Sam: "TomM, I don't think it's your fault because your working from a altered image where the subjects have been isolated from the original background and it's low res, but the image with the black and white border looks, more than ever now, like the subjects were added to the BG."

Yup, Sam, you're absolutely right. I knew that would happen, and that's why, way back in Post #40 in this thread I said:

"I was about to demo the two alternative subject-to-background lighting ratios that I suggested, but when I went back to Ego's first post, saw that everything he posted was at low resolution, and I didn't feel like spending the time to carefully mask out the family at this resolution. I knew that unless care was used in the selection process, there would likely be edge artifacts that would further compound the evaluation of any tweaked images."


This morning, I still really wanted Ego to see the visual effect of lowering the contrast of the background and brightening the shadow areas of the subjects, leading one's eye right to them instead of going everwhere else in the frame except on the subjects. However, when it didn't look like a higher rez version was coming, I thought, "what the heck" and decided to give it a shot with the low rez version that was available, and leave worrying about edge efx for some other time.

T

 

[Tom Mann]

PS - Also, FWIW, I have absolutely no problem with scenes where the illumination has been crafted by the photographer / lighting director and the subjects are brighter than one would expect if only pure available light was used. In fact, I often prefer what some might call theatrical or studio lighting.

... but that's just me. ;-)

T

 

[egosbar]

on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being an absolute beginner id say im at a 4 or 5 but i think its easier to get from 1-5 then it would be too get from 5-10 if you know what i mean

 

[egosbar]

here is the original and my version unchanged since first post