Shot overhead, along a riverbed. Using a 5D Mark IV and 70-200mm f/2.8. Was a cool fall day, close to sunset. Overall look was created in Lightroom, with very light re-touching in Photoshop. I've always enjoyed the more blue/orange cinematic look, as opposed to the overused teal/orange. Hope you enjoy!
Critique the Community
Color Grading
Submit your best color graded image for your chance to win a free Fstoppers tutorial
Submission Deadline: Thu, 07 Feb 19 04:45:00 +0000
This contest has ended.
Voting is closed.
Congratulations to the winners!
Edit: this comment was written when the photo was rated 1.43, which I didn't feel was fair, especially given nobody was giving any expression as to why.
Surprised to see the rating lower than 2 (2 is what I expected), considering it is fully composed, thought out and fully graded as well, it's certainly not a snapshot. Please, if you're rating it low and have a reason, let me know! I'd love some critique! I'm guilty of not watching the previous video, before posting and did not know they were looking for something unique and essentially "not normal". The before and after are quite different on this photo, but overall I know what the shot is worth! Feel free to let me know what you think! :)
Hi Brock, this is a beautiful image. I think the reason why it is getting a lower score than what you might expect it’s not because it’s not a beautifully composed image worthy of being in your portfolio, but because when it is judged based off of its “color grading” it is just a beautiful but relatively normal color scheme. Blues in the shadows oranges in the highlights. The stipulations expressed in the rules well for people to enhance their images using color that is unique or otherwise exceptional. So I don’t think that this is a bad image, but if I’m judging it based on whether it has unique color grading, it falls short in that category. Now you might not be an individual who enjoys putting abnormal or outside of the box coloring into your image, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I think you are disappointed in your score because people are expecting you to have submitted an image that aligns with the established theme. If you look at my two images they are not nearly as refined as this one that you have submitted but I believe people have rated them in some cases solely based on the experimental color grading that I was attempting to achieve. So I am happy with my mid 2 to 3 rating. Hopefully you have found this to be a constructive and helpful comment. Don’t be discouraged you clearly make quality images. And anybody who watches the CtC videos should know that this is a very unforgiving rating system.
Hey Logan, thanks for the CC. My initial comment, the image was rated 1.43, which I didn't think was overly fair. I expected a 2-2.5, but completely agree this wasn't the right photo essentially for this contest. Thanks for taking the time to critique!
I'm kind of disturbed by the mismatch between their faces. Taken separately, both edits are quite fine, but not so much together. I feel like her face is too bright compared to his, with darker shadows. Also, his face looks like what you get with a slight increase in clarity (in a totally fine amount), while her is more on the no/negative-clarity side. That might just be the subjects' skins, but it still gives me this non-matching impression. (And considering how in effect she sticks out and not him, it is almost a bit dehumanizing for him, as if he were part of the environment.)
Note that beside her face (that is good in isolation), I do like the overall toning.
Hey Paul!
Thanks for taking the time to comment! This couples skin tones was interested, because the male just returned home from a 2 week vacation in the Carribean and the female is quite light-skinned to begin with. If you can believe it, he was so dark, that that was the brights I could push him, before it started to look really off. The blue/orange is an absolute cliché, I'm just a sucker for it, due to my much stronger video background (I've only been photographing professionally - weddings/engagements - for about a year now). Probably not the right contest for this photo, as it's content is quite plain, was just discouraged initially as I expected around a 2 star rating and is was sitting closer to 1, which in the definition of their rating system wasn't accurate. I've got a long way to match some of the folks on here, was just honestly surprised at the amount of people slapping 1's on photos that are clearly not ones. Thanks for taking the time to respond!
Don't take the ratings too seriously... lots of images are falling in between the 2 - 3 range when there are many 1s and some 5s in here. Tough crowd !