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The Dark Room -- Photo Editing and Picture Taking. Advice, tutorials, questions on all things photoshop, photo editing, and taking pictures of beads or glass.

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  #1  
Old 2011-09-28, 11:54am
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Lyssa Lyssa is offline
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Default Please critique this picture...

As the subject says, please critique this picture I took of some of my beads. I'm not asking for a critique of the beads themselves, just the quality of the photography, the lighting, the layout, the contrast, the color, the overall presentation, etc.

Go ahead and tell me if you think it's crap. Negative criticism welcome just as much as good, productive, constructive criticism. I know some people out there feel the need to keep their mouths shut if they can't say anything nice, but I'd like to hear from as many people as possible so I'll take the bad with the good.

Thanks.

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Old 2011-09-28, 12:24pm
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I don't like the way the back beads go out of focus. It is not the worst picture out there, but I don't think it is enticing and interesting. I think the beads deserve better. (Says the woman who cannot photograph anything.)
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  #3  
Old 2011-09-28, 1:00pm
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Thank you Kathy!

Anyone else? Bueller? Bueller?
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Old 2011-09-28, 2:11pm
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I was going to say that I like the way the beads faded into the back ground. This lets me look at the details of the beads without the strain on my tired eyes trying to focus on each and every bead that is obvuously done the same way. I like the artistic and creative way the pic looks but then I can't take a decent photo to save my butt either! I guess its all in the eye of the beholde and I never did make a good critic LOL!
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Old 2011-09-28, 2:20pm
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Lynie, you make good points too. Thank you!
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Old 2011-09-28, 2:33pm
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I like your 'backdrop' of the grey wood, nice neutral. I too like the fade off in the background. The lighting seem just right, no hot spots. very nice.
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Old 2011-09-28, 2:46pm
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Generally pleasing lighting and setting.
As for the focus, I don't mind the other purple beads w flowers being soft, but since the turquoise w scrolling don't have any in focus, I'd rather see them in front of the purple or the beads arranged in such a way that at least one of them is in focus. Whew, run-on much?
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  #8  
Old 2011-09-28, 2:59pm
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Thank you, Donna and Eileen. Those were great comments.
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Old 2011-09-28, 5:42pm
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It seems slightly, very slightly out of focus. This could be my eyes. It looks like the wood directly in front of the beads is in focus. I don't mind that the back beads are out of focus as if you are going to post on line, you will likely take a pictures of the beads from the other angle and then those turquoise ones will be in focus. I like the wood background, but what ever it is doing towards the back, off the the side, looks like rippeling, it is drawing my eye away from the beads (not good).
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  #10  
Old 2011-09-28, 6:23pm
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Thanks Lara! Good points, all.
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Old 2011-09-28, 7:10pm
Mike Jordan Mike Jordan is offline
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The first question would be, what is your intention with the image? Is it to just show what you have done or is it to try and entice someone to buy them? If you are just showing what you have done, then it's a nice snapshot that shows that they are pretty beads.

If on the other hand you are trying to sell them, if I saw these on Etsy, E-bay, Craig's List or any number of places, I probably wouldn't look twice (and probably not slow down on the first look) unless I was looking for something especially like these. There are a lot of poorly done or just plain ugly beads out there that sell because the person did a bang up job on the picture. Your picture doesn't do your beads justice.

What I see wrong is that really only one bead is in focus and the rest from just out of focus to way out of focus. Unless you are just wanting people to focus on the purple bead, you should have all of it in focus. If you can't get it in focus front to back laying like this, then hang your beads vertically so that the beads are the same distance from your camera and all within the focus plane. Or shoot straight down if you can't hang them.

Next, your picture is crooked and your cropping is off, although the tilt of the image bothers me more than the cropping but both could be improved. Lighting is nice and even (Wow! He said something nice. ) with no annoying highlights taking out the detail. You do need more contrast though, which will help the colors pop more (nice colors too).

One suggestion... The wood is good and almost a neutral gray. It doesn't over power or get in the way of your beads. What would go good would be a piece of drift wood or old weathered limb that you can sit up and hang the beads from. Unless you live in the middle of the big Island over there, you should have a few beaches around that will have drift wood... unless the tourists used it all for their beach parties. Or you could come over to the Oregon coast. We have tons of it.

Ok, that's my take on the image. Hopefully it will help. You will find that the more you practice the better you will get and the more things you will see yourself when you look at the images.

Mike
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Old 2011-09-29, 2:00am
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Thank you, Mike. Yeah, I'm sorta buggered with the camera I have that I can't change the f-stop, so your suggestion for hanging them and having all the the beads in the same focus plane is a good idea. That'll solve another problem I've been having with the little tripod I'm using, it doesn't want to bow down enough to get closer to the beads. I'll stop by one of the many beaches near my home tomorrow to pick up a piece of driftwood suited to the task of holding up a string; good excuse to take the little one for a dip
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Old 2011-09-29, 7:47am
nevadaglass nevadaglass is offline
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See alot of good comments here and alot of what has been said will help me going forward in the way I try to photograph my glass since I have struggled for a while with taking good pics.

The only thing I was going to say was I would try to crop about 3/4 of an inch of that grey background off each side of the pic and see what that does for the pic. That would allow you to focus more on the front beads. I too thought my eyes were playing tricks on me and, to me, the majority of the pic looks out of focus becasue of all the faded background.

If you crop off about 3/4 of an inch from each side, it would de-emphasize the top and sides of the pic and allow the more in-focus beads at the front of the pic to stand out since my eye was drawn to the back of the pic to the grey background and with it out of focus, makes your whole pic look out of focus. (like I even know what I am talking about but that was my first impression).

I liked Mike's comments about trying to reposition to get more of the beads in focus at same distance from camera.

Last edited by nevadaglass; 2011-09-29 at 8:42am.
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  #14  
Old 2011-10-01, 3:39pm
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Personally I find it too busy if it is being taken as a picture to post for sale. Any distraction of the eye away from the beads IMO is a bad thing. True you can have an accenting or neautral background color and so on but the wood tone and possibly color draws my eye away from the actual work in the beads. Possibly the earth tone in the wood would work better with earth tone or cool tone beads. I don't mind the fade away focus but I also don't care for the white spots the lighting has left on the purple bead that is in focus. Pretty beads by the way =0)
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  #15  
Old 2011-10-01, 4:55pm
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I agree about rearranging the set. Put the plain spacers in the back and the decorated beads up front. Spacers are accents... I want to see the flowers and scrollwork.
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Old 2011-10-08, 4:11pm
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I'm not crazy about what everything is doing in the back. Is that the wood making those lines? They look like chain or twigs or something....and not wild about the leather cord in the back. And like Lara said, maybe ever so slightly out of focus.
I do love the wood, though. And I like that there are some beads blurred in the background.
But I must say this is better than any pics I take. I really need to up my game in the picture department.
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Old 2011-10-08, 6:38pm
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It's not the worst photo I've seen. If you are limited by you camera take several closeup pictures of the beads from different angles so the viewer can see what they all look like.

Remember that you are taking a picture of the beads, not the background so get as close as you can. And brighten them up a bit and sharpen the photo with your photo manipulation program. And definitely rotate the photo so they are level.

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