Help! I don't know what I did wrong!

[ngoduyviet]

Originally Posted by Friendomyn11

Having fun with your senior photos as I am seeing they can be saved. I worked on your 1st shot and see that the noise is really pretty minimal. Surely, you have less to do when your settings are correct, but using your photoshop software will allow you to see that you can save many shots that you thought were trash.

RJ, your edited version introduced green color cast to his shot.

Also, one danger in your line of thought was using post processing to correct mistakes that can be prevented while shooting. It took me a long time to break away from that habit. Now I think of post processing as a way to enhance my image, not to correct it and it saves me so much more time on pp so I can shoot more.

[AllenAyres]

Right Viet :) "Saving" an image is a last resort, your results will be MUCH more consistent and MUCH better if you get it right in-camera. Photoshop should be reserved for minor tweaking (blemish removal, etc.) unless you are going for more esoteric results like adding textures, converting to black and white, etc.

[Friendomyn11]

Originally Posted by ngoduyviet

RJ, your edited version introduced green color cast to his shot.

Also, one danger in your line of thought was using post processing to correct mistakes that can be prevented while shooting. It took me a long time to break away from that habit. Now I think of post processing as a way to enhance my image, not to correct it and it saves me so much more time on pp so I can shoot more.

Green cast is not showing up on my monitor, though that does not mean all monitors will show the same. Thanks for that observation and I will calibrate to make sure. But what I did say was that it was best to have settings that were correct to begin with which would mean less to do in photoshop later. Photoshop is a huge program and allows for the type of post processing that once was only available in professional processing labs and custom processing prices. When shooting, I, myself work for getting it right the first time.... but when unforeseen things occur, it is Photoshop to the rescue. :))

[MicWayWal]

Casey,
Your images are underexposed and soft. You should be using a light meter or white/gray/black target card for exposure settings. You also need to practice on focusing on the eyes and using a f/stop that will keep the face in focus. The noise is not bad for your camera at ISO1600.
I would not put CS4 on a notebook. There is usually not enough memory for CS4 to work efficiently. Put it on a desktop with at least 2-4 GB of memory.

[TenderMomentsPhotography]

I think you just underexposed it too much and then when trying to process and fix that it brought out the noise.
I learned this weekend just how important and so much BETTER my photos come out when I expose correctly from the get go. It sure lowered my time in having to edit - in fact I barely touched my pics at all!
That said - I know that I dont personally own the lighting set ups I was using this weekend - but I now realize that the money spent is the worth it!
Check out my portfolio. I have some great shots in there - but when I went to the DOD event (that is also in my portfolio) you can notice a REMARKABLE difference.

http://tendermomentsphotography.zenfolio.com