important pic for me - grandparents

Canon 12x IS USM (S3 IS built-in Lens) -- 36-432mm (35mm EQ)

04/07/2008 02:05:57 PM · #1

Well, as a very, very small handful of you may know, I made a somewhat unexpected trip back to Canada this past Chinese New Year.

One of the important things on my list was to get some nice pics of my grandparents with my camera as it was the first time I was in Canada with the camera, and I've done basically all my camera/photography learning since leaving Canada.

Both of them are experiencing failing health and my grandmother can no longer sleep laying down due to a chronic bronchitis that keeps filling her lungs up with water. This causes coughing attacks that are quite severe, often as long as ten minutes without letup. This (and some other factors) have damaged her heart to the point where she has had a few minor and one recent moderate heart attack. She has also had a handful of strokes and essentially is what you could call a 'high risk' patient.

Sadly, my schedule here is busy like monkey jumpers. So I have about three hours tomorrow (hopefully) that I can get down and edit a handful of pics.

I've not gotten any of the editing done (all were shot in RAW and I will be starting with the white balance and exposure corrections), but I'd really like to do a good job on these and I think I could use a bit of advice.

While I have chosen eight pics, the problems I am most concerned with pretty much show in this one.

Point #1 - perspective. That danged picture on the wall. I was shooting in narrow confines to try to keep the picture as uncluttered as possible. I felt the edge of the picture frame was OK to keep in there, but didn't realize until later that it creates some very tricky lines...

How would I best take care of this? Should I grab the bulk of the painting and edit it in perspective? Should I just stretch it by hand? I've not done anything in perspective before and I'm not looking forward to a big time investment to learn a new technique. Midterms are just around the corner and I've got a somewhat hefty assignment to finish for Wednesday morning and a big Chinese test later that afternoon.

Point #2 - the eyes. Ok, I never noticed this before, and my mother said the same. My grandmother apparently has a slightly crossed eye. She wore glasses for most of my mother's life and it was only about a year ago that she had surgery to remove her cataracts - which at the same time allowed the doctors an opportunity to correct her vision too - that she started going without glasses. My mother reports that she is quite sensitive about this.

Does anyone have any tips for this? I tried to explain to my mother that it's a bit more complicated than just coloring in the little bits because the direction that the eye is looking can actually affect the way the eyelids and surrounding muscles move the eye (for example, taking a picture from above often helps overcome squinty eyes) and this can make edits look a bit odd if not done perfectly. My mother responded by telling me to just print them out in 4x6 so nobody can see the flaws.

...

ANYhow.... feel free to give some advice on those two points. Anything else regarding composition would be OK too. I've not even started looking at them with a consideration to editing colors, so that's not really my primary slant here.

Incidentally, it was difficult for them to manage these pics which had neither of them standing for more than a few minutes at a time and the whole thing lasted about 12-15 minutes. My grandfather is very tottery and cannot stand up straight. He is walker bound, but sometimes uses a cane, although it's kinda scary when he does. The pictures were taken when it was dark following her afternoon nap. Light was provided by two table lamps. I shot with my 50 f/1.4, but even still it was pretty tricky going with the shutter speeds.

Shot is straight from camera RAW to JPG to DPC sized via bicubic sharper.

thanks for your thoughts.

GeneralE

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

04/07/2008 02:16:16 PM · #2

Interestingly, I have a photo of my grandparents in almost exactly the same pose as the one you posted. :-)

Maybe you can try just cloning out the painting altogether and replacing it with the solid wall color.

I think you should try "moving" one of the eyes to look more aligned. It may be as simple as brightening the white area on one side of the iris. I've changed the direction eyes looked by carefully cloning them (on a separate layer) slightly offset from their original position. Besides, your mom is probably right, that in normal-sized prints no one will notice.

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 ED

04/07/2008 10:40:59 PM · #3

thanks gen. I tried to make it a bit more 'classic' looking.

Not sure about cloning out the pic since I'd have to get in there and work around my grandmother's hair.

here's a 100% crop that allows you to see the eyes a bit more clearly.

I can't even really tell for sure which eye is the one that is 'crossed'. I think it's her right, but in another picture, it seems clear that it's her left.

I think I'm probably over stressing on the issue, but it's a pretty emotional set of pictures, so I'm not looking at issues evenly. She commented that these would be nice for her funeral pics because she feels like she is in such a precarious position with life.

BeeCee

Nikon D40

04/08/2008 12:46:38 AM · #4

You know, I never would have noticed the eye if you hadn't mentioned it, and it still doesn't look very obvious to me. Personally, I'd leave it. It's part of who she is and one of the little things that makes her special.

The picture frame doesn't bother me, but the picture itself is somewhat distracting. Possibly just darkening and blurring it a bit so it's not such a draw to the eye? In a way I like it better than a blank wall... adds a bit of warmth or something... Sorry, I'm not very articulate tonight :(

Anyway, these are just the opinion of an amateur, looking at the shot more from the viewpoint of a family member rather than a photographer.

What a beautiful couple, and your shots and memories will be cherished forever, I'm sure :)

Message edited by author 2008-04-08 02:40:46.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

04/08/2008 02:21:30 AM · #5

I wouldn't worry about the eyes at all, myself. Here's a quick-and-dirty edit of the full length shot posted:

There's been some color correction (not perfected by any means), a little shadow/highlight to get detail in the man's jacket, and some editing of the BG picture to square it up. To do that, I selected the BG picture only, copied it, pasted it in as a new layer, and applied skew control to the new layer; it's not hard to do. It can be done better on a larger original.

R.

suemack

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

04/08/2008 03:26:48 AM · #6

Quick edit with the painting removed

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

04/08/2008 10:59:21 AM · #7

Originally posted by suemack:

Quick edit with the painting removed

I like it with the painting, actually. It adds context and personality to the image.

R.

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

04/08/2008 11:07:52 AM · #8

thanks guys, I really appreciate it. Really.

Bee, I'll pass the compliment on to them. They will appreciate it.

Bear, thanks and thanks again. Once for the eyes. Once for the painting. At the time, I thought it might lend a bit of balance to the top. I've second guessed pretty much everything in the pics though, so I'm a little bit like a dog chasing his own tail...

Oh and once again for the color tweaks. I've always enjoyed looking at what you have done with your flesh tones (that book binder pic was memorable). I'm thinking that I might need to boost the greens just a tiny bit to counter that redness just within the skin areas, sound right to you?

I'll have to look at skew control. I've not seen it before. You're still with CS2 right?

Sue, Thanks as well. I really like the effect given by accentuating the uneven lighting/shadowing on the wall behind, and I like the tweaks you made to the lighting. I'll incorporate this into the final edits.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

04/08/2008 11:18:33 AM · #9

Originally posted by eschelar:

Oh and once again for the color tweaks. I've always enjoyed looking at what you have done with your flesh tones (that book binder pic was memorable). I'm thinking that I might need to boost the greens just a tiny bit to counter that redness just within the skin areas, sound right to you?

Yup, probably. I didn't work at it very hard. It was trickier than it looked, not sure why.

Originally posted by eschelar:

I'll have to look at skew control. I've not seen it before. You're still with CS2 right?

No, I'm CS3, but it's the same for CS2: edit>transform>skew... great tool. Really useful for making small changes to tilted horizons when you don't want to have to crop on one side of the image.

And I STRONGLY recommend keeping the painting in; without it, that's just a gaping, empty void of wall.

R.

Message edited by author 2008-04-08 11:18:49.

Tamron 16-300mm Di II VC PZD MACRO w/Canon Nikon mount

04/08/2008 11:32:59 AM · #10

Found it while you were typing.

heh. I played with skew and transform. Actually, I kinda liked what I got in perspective, but I did the whole picture. Now of course I'm wondering if it still looks natural.

Just mucking about and got this.

Opinions on the effect on the realism? I'm reasoning that if I am using perspective to edit something, the effect on the picture is mirroring the effect that the lens and perspective of where I am with the camera is also going to have a similar effect on the subjects, which in turn, when corrected will leave the whole thing still looking natural. Reasonable?

Oh yeah, and I'm still working with the full sized JPG processed from RAW. I'll do my color/exposure corrections in RAW, then tweak in 16 bit tiff, then print directly from that. I'd hazard a guess that you found it tricker than it looked because it's all translated from 8 bit JPG with a strong color cast. There's not much there outside of the yellows and reds until I reprocess from the original.

Message edited by author 2008-04-08 11:36:28.

JulietNN

Canon EOS R7

04/08/2008 11:40:31 AM · #11

I never noticed her eyes to be honest, i had to really look at them to see any difference, even then it doesnt show at all.

I think it is a wonderful protrait and your grandparents look so warm, do you think they may adopt me as another granddaughter???