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Digital Photography Tutorials - Rahuel's World In Motion (aka Playmate)

Rahuel submitted the photo below to the digital photography tutor page to be critiqued.

It was easier to show my ideas for this photo rather than explain it (although you are more than welcome to try to interpret my explanation!)

First of all have a look at the photo below - it's Rahuel's original. Roll your mouse over it to see my edited version.

The changes I made were:

Cropped the photo - in order to create greater impact and cut out some of the background.
Straightened the photo to get the horizon level (I did this as I cropped).
Cloned out the child on the ground - odd numbers in photos generally make a better composition - three, five, seven - all good. Four (children in this case) somehow just doesn't seem to work as well!
Boosted the brightness - the original was a bit dark.
Increased the saturation - the colours in the original were a bit flat.
Added a little 'zoom blur' - I did this because the theme was World in Motion and I thought that the zoom effect created a bit more 'motion' to the scene.

Some of this editing might be considered by some to be a bit savage, but at the end of the day it's just my take on Rahuel's photo.

If you would like to try some of these effects for youself, here are some useful links:

Tips on how to use the crop tool.
How to use the clone tool.
Some thoughts on how far to go with image editing.

And if you want to add an opinion - make your comments here.

Have a photo you'd like critiqued? Click here to submit your photo to the digital photography tutorials page