Thread: Help with focus - sooc added

Hi, ladies! Just one new one right now. I'm still working on exposure and focus, and still struggling. I'm thinking the focus fell on the grass here? Is this because I was shooting wide open? I was trying to blur the heck out of the ugly background.

And I still have ZERO clue what I am doing PPing. It took me two days to figure out how to sharpen for web, LOL! I have a book on the way so hopefully that will help me to at least figure out how to do the easy stuff.

Hit me with any and all CC. I really want to get better!

ss 1/1600 (whoa, really?)
f/1.4
ISO 200



Okay, here is the sooc. Better or worse? I thought her skin looked kind of washed out and was trying to fix that. But of course I'm not calibrated and I'm on a laptop which I think is bad? Plus I have no idea what I am adjusting when I am adjusting stuff. So maybe this actually looks better?

I think it looks pretty good. I'm not sure, but maybe the focus is on her hoodie? It looks pretty sharp to me. I might brighten it up a little, but over all I think its a great shot! Nice catch lights!

I think it looks pretty good too! She's adorable!

I have felt silly asking this question, but since you said you just figured it out, I don't feel so silly. How do you sharpen for web, and why?

I think the focus looks great too, I don't see the hoodie as being sharper. I like the pic!

As far as I know, the reason for sharpening for web (which I do all the time even with my nature shots) is that when you resize your pic to put online, it usually becomes slightly softer, and often when you upload it to a site, it'll look softer too. So sharpening helps fix that.

I just resize my pic to the size I want it to be online, and then use the adjust/sharpen tool...or there is the unsharp mask tool.

Hmmm...maybe it is more in focus than I thought? Or maybe the sharpening helped.

And you know what is funny? I think I actually made the picture darker messing with her skin color. So maybe my sooc was better??? Haha. No time to post it right now but I'll try to add it later.

I think the focus is fine too. I could be wrong though. I like the pic, and you gotta love being able to "blur" out the ugly background!

Focus looks good to me too! I'm actually amazed that you got that much of her face in focus w/ such a wide aperture! SWEET!

TFS,
GiGi

I think it's a very nice shot!

One thing you might play with is the coloration on the bokehtized (word?) house in the background. The large white patch to the left of your daughter is brighter than her face. Try squinting your eyes, and you'll see that it's the first thing that pops out. I'm wondering if you could darken it slightly so that attention isn't drawn from her sweet face.

I wouldn't eliminate the house because I think it's a great context for the shot.

BTW, anyone who can get a child to pose on the grass AND look at the camera is my hero!

Wow your SOOC is wonderful!!! but I do like your edit, somehow you made her face slightly brighter and it looks like the sun is making it glow both versions have blue hair at the edges which slightly bothers me but I am not sure if it looks ok to everyone else or not.

What are you using to edit? I'm still pretty new to post processing, but I would make a curves layer, and do a slight bump in the middle to brighten things up, then you can mask back the background if you wanted to keep it darker.