Two angels !
by maroberts

Comment by Denise:
precious

Feeding the young
by maroberts

Comment by LandzEnca:
Great animal portrait. A bit more curves and contrast may have made this image better

Feeding the young
by maroberts

Comment by Mike:
image appears a little flat.

Feeding the young
by maroberts

Comment by grahamgator:
Such a sweet image; IMO, a little more contrast would give this the extra ump it needs. (vote earlier)

Feeding the young
by maroberts

Comment by geinafets:
This looks like it was taken on a cloudy day because the lighting is really flat. I think adding a touch more contrast would have given this a huge boost.

Beach Girl
by maroberts

Comment by Alyn:
You did a good job in the edit to bring out the power of the ocean. This original (as you probably can see) is very blown out and almost too bright to look at. How you edit the photo is always contingent upon when effect you are looking for.

I did this quick edit with the mindset of just pulling out the general assets of the photo: Click here. (Generally: Removed seagull, curves, levels [on the ocean], selective color [to pull more warmth into the photo], sharpen [only her].)

The white balance of the original is off. There is way too much blue light. It made her look red. In the edit, I pulled in more warm light which is more conducive to a typical beach/sunlit scene.

In addition to this, there are many simple things one can do to bring out the power of the ocean or add a more moody feel to the image. Just playing around with color adjustments (photoshop: selective color, channel mixer, etc), with special focus on the blue and cyan channels.

One also has to know when a photo is worth the effort of editing. My comments about the general lighting conditions and the effect on the model still stand.

Beach Girl
by maroberts

Comment by blindjustice:
This is stunning; compositional elements aside, it has almost 3D color and depth, without too much graininess.
I like the pose, very impressionist or post impressionist in mood. almost pointillist.

Beach Girl
by maroberts

Comment by Alyn:
Critiquing. I will be 100% honest.

First of all, your composition is too tight. Her fingers are so close to the border that it makes me anxious! You were so close to cutting off part of her hand entirely.

Photographing people requires much better lighting conditions (perhaps sunset when you would get gentler light and a more impressive sky). The sun is so harsh that it caused her face to scrunch up and look grumpy...not attractive. In addition, her shoulders are too high. The neck is an important thing to feature on a woman and in your image, she doesn't have one.

I understand the HDR experimentation...but it was the wrong picture to pick for it. The HDR brought out too many details in her skin and made her look probably 10 years older than she really is. HDR is not the right technique to use for photographing women in bikinis. The only positive of the HDR that I see...is in her hair and on the foreground sand. The technique brought out many beautiful textures.

I don't like the seagull...it's a bit distracting to me.

Your colors need work also. There's a lot of grays in the background. There's no pop in the sky. I also agree with the majority of comments about the halo.

Also, make sure you take a close look at your images and clone out the sensor dust...there's one I see on the upper right of the image.

Beach Girl
by maroberts

Comment by tnun:
Great surrealism.

Beach Girl
by maroberts

Comment by ineedauniquename:
procesing has left a halo ... mind you I can talk mine suffers the same too.