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Color Grading

Submit your best color graded image for your chance to win a free Fstoppers tutorial
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2.17 - "Needs Work" 

This is a daytime photo shoot where the color grading is intended to remind people of the Michael Keaton era Batman movies. Her pose may seem a little strange because this is one image in a series intended to put into a slideshow. This particular shot is intended to look like one frame in an action/fight sequence.

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9 Comments

Obviously this is a low budget shoot, but I’d love constructive critiques.

For me, your processing successfully gives the final image more of a cinematic feel. I typically don't process for this effect, so unfortunately, can't offer much feedback for suggested improvements. However, the "Dutch angle," you chose adds dynamic to the overall scene. Looks like it was a fun shoot and hope the little lady had a blast.

Thank you for the feedback! This is my daughter. We did this shoot for her birthday. She had a blast. So did I.

I do like the idea and the overall color tone. Especially, the night/evening feeling is there, despite shooting at daylight: good job. I would probably have darken the purple a but though.
About the shooting itself: it is a bit blurry, and unfortunately because of the noise level it is hard to improve the sharpness without resulting in an ultra.noisy image. It is already quite noisy. The problem here is that you shot at a much to high ISO (5000). You opened wide (1.8) which is good, but your shutter speed is unnecessary fast: 1/3200. You could have easily gone to 1/60. Since you have a cropped sensor, your rule of thumb is: 1/(1.5*focal length). Thus, you could have shot it at ISO 100 with insignificant noise.

Thank you, this is exactly the type of input I desired to get when I joined this competition. It also opens my eyes that people look at that information when judging these submissions. As a relatively new photographer I have not even been looking at those specs on peoples images. I’ve simply been judging other peoples images off of whether I like them or not. I really appreciate the critique.

I actually looked at this data to provide you ways to improve. Without that, people do not care about the conditions of the shoot.
The hard-to-swallow implication is: it is not relevant whether you got the best out of a situation. What matters is the final result. If the situation made it impossible to be good, it is not.

I would advise you to learn how stops work (if not already done), and always try to get the lowest ISO for the situation. Make your ISO easy to access, map it to your Fn button. (I think you can do that on your camera.)
Also, when looking to others' pictures, try to learn from them: look at the composition, the lighting, the toning, the settings… There is a lot to get from an proactive consumption of pictures.
And watch tutorials. :p

Thank you. I hope that me sharing the circumstances of the shoot didn’t come off as me trying to justify The mistakes. Certainly not. I just intended it to be conversational. I hope that my comments on your red and black submission were helpful . Very cool photo.

It did not come up as a justification. ;)

Hi Logan so after seeing all your comments on other peoples (including my own) entries I really wanted to find your entries (it took A LOT of scrolling) to offer you some well deserved advice (if I'm able to).

Most of what I'd say has already been said particular by Paul. I like the colour of the photo but it is too grainy, definitely lower that ISO - I always try and shot on my lowest ISO of 100 except where speed is absolutely crucible - for any none sport shooting 1/60 should be plenty.
For almost all my photography I prioritise ISO last and aperture first (unless I need quick shots like in sport where is speed>aperture>ISO)

The composition is solid and I don't know if I would change anything - after all this is a photo very personal to you (and your daughter) and I'm assuming your not intending on selling it anyway - were this a pro shoot for an action movie I'd obviously have more to say but for what it is I can't think of anything.