Photo Critique

Introducing: Friday Photo Critique #1

on Oct 9th 2009 with 39 comments

We’re kicking off a new type of community project today – Friday Photo Critique. We will be publishing a photograph submitted by one of our wonderful readers, then asking you all to offer constructive feedback on the image.

After a few days, I’ll update the post to feature the most helpful and insightful comments. You will also be credited with a link to your website or portfolio, so be sure to enter it correctly when submitting a comment!

Quick Ground Rules

  1. Play nice! We’ve deliberately chosen photographs that aren’t perfect, so please be constructive with any criticism.
  2. Feel free to offer any type of advice – composition, lighting, post-processing etc.
  3. You can also link to photographs that you feel offer a great example of this type of image shot exceptionally well.

Without further ado, here’s the first candidate for Friday Photo Critique!

The Photograph

Photo Critique

Photographer: Odin Dutton (on Twitter @twe4ked)

Please let us know what you think in the comments – how would you have approached the scene or taken the photo differently?

The most constructive and helpful comments will be featured on the site, and you’ll also be given priority to feature your own work in a future Friday Photo Critique!

Feedback and Comments

Here are five of the most useful and insightful pieces of feedback given on this photo, taken from the comments:

John L. Reed

Selective coloring is best used to focus the eye on a feature. The composition of this image, however, works against that concept by placing the subject off to the side into shadow.

The glaring white taking up most of the image steals the viewer’s attention, leaving the subject in a completely different environment.

Posing and wardrobe arrangement make the subject look heavier than she really is.

Perspective should be used to focus the eye, accentuate a feature, or correct a flaw. Here, it detracts from the image overall.

Someone mentioned the use of the Rule of Thirds here, but that isn’t the case here. Remember the inspiration behind that rule, that it is an artistic tool. The subject here isn’t balanced on any “1/3 line,” and so the image looks haphazard and reckless.

My personal tendency is remove skin flaws, such as freckles, and to smooth the skin overall. Of course, that’s a matter of style and creative preference. Some prefer authenticity over aesthetics.

The area that needs the most improvement is the lighting. The subject is on the edge of a pool of light, which creates interesting shadows on her, but the center of the pool of light creates the bright, distracting part of the image. To play with shadows, control the rest of the light. A grid-spot is an excellent tool (probably my personal favorite) to control light while creating effective shadowing. An example of grid-spot use can be seen at http://gallery.belle-immagini.com/beth/e5b7c625. This shows how light can be directed into an area of focus.

Luke

The photographer is NOT using the rule of thirds. The subject is too far to the left and the beams to the right of the subject battle the woman for attention.

The red looks amateurish. Might try to overlay the color and adjust levels and saturation from the original image instead of coloring over the desaturated image.

The image quality is a little poor. You might think about adding some grain to mask the poor image quality.

Nice concept, small tweeks could make a nice finished image.

Can Berkol

I’m sorry that I don’t care about so called rules. — It doesn’t mean that I don’t share some of the same thoughts, I agree to some of the critiques but I hate rules and I do not like to comment based on rules.

Overall:
The photo isn’t bad at all.

Selective Coloring:
Selective coloring is awesome, especially for this particular image. It matches with the overall mood and it stregthens the composition.

Shadow & Highlight Ratio:
Strong shadowsincrease the drama. However, there are two thing that can be improved.

1. To the left of model there is a huge over exposed area. It distracts the attention. Because of too much light over that side, the model seems to be a lot more hidden than she needed to be.

2. On the right side of the model the shadows are too strong. It’s not specifically a bad thing. But due to thestrong shadows models face and head blend into darkness. The model’s face is not in too much trouble but the head for my own taste is blended too much into darkness.

Framing:
Absolutely perfect. A creative angle. The photo is much more dynamic and expressive this way. The angle that is used also suits very good with the shadows and overal lighting.

Ande Rummel

i like the concept. and the attempt at storytelling is great.

the composition seems odd:
- you cropped off her knee giving her leg an abnormal sense of elongation.
- if you had shot with the camera more at her hip level the vertical line convergence wouldn’t be so demanding.
- the focus is drawn away from the girl, taking away some of the moody feel i think you are attempting.

some things that could help:
- your blacks seem forced, ease up on the shadow levels (if there are so many black-blacks you need some white-whites)
- open your highlights. everything feels too muddy. this makes me uncomfortable to look too long at the image.
- don’t let the red layer drop the highlights of the dress. poping highlights into the dress might be all you need to draw more attention the the subject.

i like the direction you’re going. stick to it, play with some other images and then come back to this one – you might get more ideas to add.

Jay

The composition seems nice to me. the only thing that doesnt work is the brightness of the red and the super strong shadow that is cast between her arm and her dress.

My advice would be to take the mask you used for the dress and lips, and instead of a color overlay (which is what i think you used), use a hue and saturation or selective color to bring out the red.. but make the red much cooler.

David Appleyard is davidappleyard on Themeforest
 
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David Appleyard is a designer and writer based in the UK. He manages Tuts+, along with having founded several design websites including Design Shack and PixelsDaily.  

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  • http://samlinkphotography.com sam

    I LIKE:
    The Rule of Thirds, how my eye is drawn not to the center of the image.
    How her lipstick isn’t left out in the “RED ONLY” style.

    I DONT LIKE:
    The softness of it, sharpen it a little.
    The contrast. I can’t see her face, which is kindof annoying/dissapointing.
    The crop. The bottom right corner draws my attention away from the subject.
    The red may be TOO red, or an “ammeture” shade of red, try hue-ing or mess around with saturation.

    • http://behance.net/alexbeltechi Alex Beltechi

      I like the shade of red you chose, but it is too flat indeed. My guess is that you recolored the selection with a single color. You ought to add a few subtle variances of the same red inside the selection. Add yellow near light sources and magenta in the shade (lightly, obviously). That should make the red more dynamic and believable.

      • http://www.razerdesign.com Kevin Kirsche

        Create a layer above it and fill with 50% gray. Set this blend mode to overlay. Use burn and dodge on this to play with burning and dodging to create depth non-destructively.

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      Ammeture shade of red.. that hurts ;)

      Cheers

      • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

        Whoops, wasnt trying to convey a smart-arse attitude with that wink.

  • http://rummelx2.com ande rummel

    i like the concept. and the attempt at storytelling is great.

    the composition seems odd:
    - you cropped off her knee giving her leg an abnormal sense of elongation.
    - if you had shot with the camera more at her hip level the vertical line convergence wouldn’t be so demanding.
    - the focus is drawn away from the girl, taking away some of the moody feel i think you are attempting.

    some things that could help:
    - your blacks seem forced, ease up on the shadow levels (if there are so many black-blacks you need some white-whites)
    - open your highlights. everything feels too muddy. this makes me uncomfortable to look too long at the image.
    - don’t let the red layer drop the highlights of the dress. poping highlights into the dress might be all you need to draw more attention the the subject.

    i like the direction you’re going. stick to it, play with some other images and then come back to this one – you might get more ideas to add.

    ande

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      Thanks Ande

  • http://www.peewee1002.co.uk peewee1002

    Pros:

    Different textures make the whole piece more intresting.
    Doesn’t look like a hoilday snap (person looking away)
    The effect is intresting

    Cons:

    Poor quality – the image seems very noisy imo.
    The lighting is rather poor – A simple reflector to get more light on her face would have made it much better.

    The photoshop quality looks alit rushed some of the edges are too sharp or overlapping objects.

    overall I think the image is promising but has got abit more work before it is perfect.

    Nice idea btw – this is really good!

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      The poor quality is simply because I don’t have a good camera, it was a crappy ‘point and shoot’ happy snap camera.

      Also as I said in another comment I’m not a photographer as such so I don’t have things like light reflectors.

      The photoshop job isn’t the best I’ve done, it was a while back, before I learnt the magic of image masks :P

      Cheers

  • Ryan

    I agree with Sam, with this image I would have liked to see a much darker shade of red to make it seem less bold.

    If you like the bold red, you might want to try to have your model against the white/lighter background to help balance out the darker areas in the image. Your selection of the dress will need to be more precise though.

    Overall I do like the contrast between the softness of the model against the grungy environment.

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      Cheers Ryan

  • Robert

    Overall: ok, but too much red.

    other points:
    -The bottom of the dress looks added in to cover more leg.
    -The Red lacks tonal values (highlights, midtones, shadows)
    -The woman’s arm seems to have been darkened too much
    -Woman’s face is too dark to really make the red lips “pop”
    -Overall the woman is too dark in general, not enough detail (my opinion the subject should be not only the red dress but the woman as well.)

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      Strange, the dress was never added to although it does look a bit like that now I looked again.

  • http://www.bluearrowdesigns.com Luke

    The photographer is NOT using the rule of thirds. The subject is too far to the left and the beams to the right of the subject battle the woman for attention.

    The red looks amateurish. Might try to overlay the color and adjust levels and saturation from the original image instead of coloring over the desaturated image.

    The image quality is a little poor. You might think about adding some grain to mask the poor image quality.

    Nice concept, small tweeks could make a nice finished image.

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      Image quality is due to not having great equipment on hand. Thanks for the comments.

  • Brett

    Red is too strong for me. I also feel that there is too much shadow left side of the body. Also appears to be a bit blurry, could use some sharpening.

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      Too much noise to use sharpening

  • http://www.kulayphotography.com Paul

    This could be a nice high contrast black and white shot. Selective colour should be illegal, it’s overused and just not cool. Concentrate on making the best image you can without resorting to selective colour.

    • http://www.greenteadesign.ca Travis King

      I think a pure black and white with more contrast and some more light bounced onto the model would probably look great.

      Use the boards to lead your eye toward the model as the focal point.

      Perhaps a little selective vignetting would tone down the right side as well.

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      As I said in another comment it was for a assignment and I was doing a set of film noir / sin city style images so the selective colour was part of the project.

      Cheers

  • adam

    in my opinion black and white with color…..a big no no.

    Its just a little tacky, this is just my opinion, and hope i don’t cause offense.

    other than that, i think that there should maybe be a little more focus on the face, it kinda get over powered by the dress, and the fact that it out of focus.

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      Fair call, I had a whole set of photos that were under a ‘film noir/sin city’ category for year 12 so I was trying to recreate the sin city feel in this one.

  • GhostHand

    I wil say just one thing.

    There’re tons of image similar to this one. Why should I prefer this to any other?
    I think that this is the question when, we, as photographers take a shot.
    Photography is not just a “point, click and photoshop”.

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      I’m not a photographer, I’m not trying to sell anything with this photo, I personally couldn’t care less if you don’t like this shot more than the others like it. This was on a photoshoot with some mates trying to get some good shots for an assignment, its not quite a point, click and photoshop job…

  • http://www.belle-immagini.com John L. Reed

    Selective coloring is best used to focus the eye on a feature. The composition of this image, however, works against that concept by placing the subject off to the side into shadow.

    The glaring white taking up most of the image steals the viewer’s attention, leaving the subject in a completely different environment.

    Posing and wardrobe arrangement make the subject look heavier than she really is.

    Perspective should be used to focus the eye, accentuate a feature, or correct a flaw. Here, it detracts from the image overall.

    Someone mentioned the use of the Rule of Thirds here, but that isn’t the case here. Remember the inspiration behind that rule, that it is an artistic tool. The subject here isn’t balanced on any “1/3 line,” and so the image looks haphazard and reckless.

    My personal tendency is remove skin flaws, such as freckles, and to smooth the skin overall. Of course, that’s a matter of style and creative preference. Some prefer authenticity over aesthetics.

    The area that needs the most improvement is the lighting. The subject is on the edge of a pool of light, which creates interesting shadows on her, but the center of the pool of light creates the bright, distracting part of the image. To play with shadows, control the rest of the light. A grid-spot is an excellent tool (probably my personal favorite) to control light while creating effective shadowing. An example of grid-spot use can be seen at http://gallery.belle-immagini.com/beth/e5b7c625. This shows how light can be directed into an area of focus.

  • http://www.flickr.com/tyrone_michael Tyrone Michael Avnit

    The right distracts from the elegant of the pose. I actually think the left has some sort of mystery to it and I dont mind the way the light falls on the models face. I just think the background distracts too much from the model.

    I am also not a fan of selective color. I would be curious to see this exact photo in black and white off a less busy background.

  • http://www.gdepm.com Gaspar Garcia de Paredes

    The image has problems with the subject in that not only is it not clear to my eyes that the red dress is the main subject, but as someone pointed out the girl in the picture gets lost. The white boards are too bright and expansive; they take too much space in the composition and attract too much attention to themselves. The white boards should be darkened a bit. (Vignetting, like mentioned above, might be a good idea.)

    I also thing the image would be better if the girl was moved a little towards the center (so that she actually falls on the thirds line) and she was brightened, especially the skin on her upper body.

  • http://toojk.com toojk

    That is too dark on the left, more prefer the model stand towards to the right to light up half of her face.

    Would be look good in B&W too.

  • http://photographyforsoul.com Can Berkol

    I’m sorry that I don’t care about so called rules. — Iit doesn’t mean that I share some of the same thoughts but I hate rules I do not like to comment based on rules.

    Overall:
    The photo isn’t bad at all.

    Selective Coloring:
    Selective coloring is awesome, especially for this particular image. It matches with the overall mood and it stregthens the composition.

    Shadow & Highlight Ratio:
    Strong shadowsincrease the drama. However, there are two thing that can be improved.

    1. To the left of model there is a huge over exposed area. It distracts the attention. Because of too much light over that side, the model seems to be a lot more hidden than she needed to be.

    2. On the right side of the model the shadows are too strong. It’s not specifically a bad thing. But due to thestrong shadows models face and head blend into darkness. The model’s face is not in too much trouble but the head for my own taste is blended too much into darkness.

    Framing:
    Absolutely perfect. A creative angle. The photo is much more dynamic and expressive this way. The angle that is used also suits very good with the shadows and overal lighting.

    to the TUTS:
    It’s a little distracting to scroll up and down when writing a critique. Is there a way that you can move the “Add Your Comment” part above the comments only for Critiques. Or may be can we find another solution, so that we can see the photo while while writing the review?

    • http://photographyforsoul.com Can Berkol

      oh well i’ve lost bunch of stuff when I was copying and pasting..

      “I’m sorry that I don’t care about so called rules. — It doesn’t mean that I don’t share some of the same thoughts, I agree to some of the critiques but I hate rules and I do not like to comment based on rules.”

  • Joanne

    I like the idea for this picture. I like the black & white with the selective colour.

    One thing that would help to make a choice regarding composition is just look at the photo while squinting. If you do this you notice there is a line running half way down. The right side is white and the left dark. I think it’s more desirable to have a more balanced look. This could be achieved through more light in the left area. Shooting in another area that has more even lighting.

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      Or maybe it is the yin yang of dark and light ;)

      Kidding, you’re right, thanks.

  • http://jayrossgraphics.com jay

    the composition seems nice to me. the only thing that doesnt work is the brightness of the red and the super strong shadow that is cast between her arm and her dress…

    my advice would be to take the mask you used for the dress and lips, and instead of a color overlay (which is what i think you used), use a hue and saturation or selective color to bring out the red.. but make the red much cooler..

  • http://en.gravatar.com/userimage/10232660/8a5c30ff448216473bb1cdf82f636202.jpg aggiebabe

    Personally, I like it.

    I would like to see the photo edited with some of the suggestions to visually compare.

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      Thanks Aggie

  • Jessica

    I’ll make it plain and simple, so spiel, no criticizing.. I have no problem with the crop in fact you can hardly tell. I would tone down the red a bit as it does not flow with the rest of the photo… Heres the only thing that gets me, the right side of the photo is actually least important, it should be darker than the space the subject is, she is too dark, I would darken the house and lighten her up a bit.

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      Yeah, the shot isn’t lit well, ill agree with that, thanks for the crit.

  • http://www.greenteadesign.ca Travis King

    Hey David!

    Are you going to let us have a go at the RAW file? :)

    • http://www.twe4ked.com Odin Dutton

      The original wasn’t shot in RAW but I could give you the original to have a play with (CC edit and atribute) if you contact me on twitter or via my website.