Why do they pick the worst ones?

[ChristopherCoy]

I shot this pic this morning. It was a grabshot and was severly underexposed. I did what I could with it in LR, changed it to B&W, and threw it in the gallery. Low and behold this is the first print they ordered! She LOVED it.

Any other ideas to make it a little more pleasing before it goes to print?

[my3peas]

I've found that by not offering them the images I feel are unsatisfactory, they don't have the option to purchase them. It seems to always happen that the one instance I show a soft image, they want to buy it big, so I just have to be super critical of my work.

Regarding the image, I'd love to see the original to see what advice I might give. In this conversion it looks like there is loss of detail in the face (nose, smile,etc). If you could lighten the eyes, that might help too.

:) just my thoughts.

[ronocnikral]

agree with christie. we go through all our images and ask ourselves, if they want this in a 16x24, can we print it? if there is any doubt, the image gets nixed.

i don't care what the image is of, we don't want to have to explain we can't print it. it's better not to show it.

[S-Man]

Yeah, people are funny like that.
I'd try to recover the hot spot on the face a little, but it has a neat grainy film look to it that is probably due to pushing it in post.
If you don't like the noise, you could try Imagenomic's Noiseware, or Noise Ninja or something.
If you have Portraiture, it might smooth out the skin noise before B&W Conversion.
Did you add the harsh vignette, or was that some obstruction on the top left?

[bondarnes]

Rule #1: Never, never, never show an image to your client that you would not be proud to sell to them.

Rule #2: Refer to rule #1

[bzboy]

You show true love in your photography......nice.....

[DigitalDiva]

Originally Posted by bondarnes

Rule #1: Never, never, never show an image to your client that you would not be proud to sell to them.

Rule #2: Refer to rule #1

I wish you would have posted these before I spent the evening working on a poorly lit image. LOL

I feel for you Chris.

[jeffkohn]

Thing is, when you go ahead and include one of these "iffy" shots that have technical flaws, it's probably because there was something there that made the image compelling, despite the technical shortcomings - a captured moment or expression in the case of portrait, for instance. Your customer is going to be less sensitive to the technical flaws (especially if viewing low-res or small-sized proofs); all they're going to see is that "something" that was captured and that connects with them.

So the ideal solution is to make sure you get the shot without the technical flaws. Barring that, you need to ditch these types of shots to the recycle bin before the customer ever sees them, if you don't feel that you can produce a print matching the quality standards you need in order to be comfortable selling them.

[Tom]

Yeah, I learned that the hard way, too. Never show a client something that you wouldn't want blown up with your name slapped on it.

[PhotoChicken]

HaHaHa I feel your pain I use to send hundreds of images to the magazines I work for and they would pick the worst images. I finally narrowed it down to what I liked best

[zebulus]

If the client likes it, why should it matter?

[ChristopherCoy]

I actually went back and edited this a little. Opened up the eyes, reduced the noise as much as I could and it actually came out pretty good. Waiting on the print today.

[dracula02]

Originally Posted by ChristopherCoy

I shot this pic this morning. It was a grabshot and was severly underexposed. I did what I could with it in LR, changed it to B&W, and threw it in the gallery. Low and behold this is the first print they ordered! She LOVED it.

Any other ideas to make it a little more pleasing before it goes to print?

How's this?