Fall off the ground.

[Toronto iCANd]

I thought this would turn out alot better than it did.
I'd appreciate any comments though.

[Iamcndn]

Its a bit blurry, try unsharp mask. It might still work out, its a great composition.
This is a small version of what it looks like with unsharp mask, hope you dont mind.

[remembertofocus]

i agree. the edited version is nice. the colors a wonderful, and the way it creeps over the window is great...i love the angle, it really feels fall...

[Toronto iCANd]

Thank you both, and Canadian, for your time to help show me what would look better.

I have a question. It seems almost ALL of the pictures I take never appear to be in perfect focus. Whether I take my time, and manually focus, or use the auto-focus feature, for shots like this, they never appear absoloulty clear. I am using a Nikon F80 with a kit lens, do you suppose the lens just isn't that great quality? Or is focusing something that is as difficult as it is for me?

Andrew.

[Toronto iCANd]

Canadian,
When you use the unsharp mask, do you happen to remember what amount, radius, and threshold you used? I am new to PS and don't really know what the standard settings for that are. Thanks.

Andrew.

[Iamcndn]

Sorry I should have told you,
these are the settings I used that looked pretty good:

Amount: 223%
Radius: 0.4 pixels
Threshold: 0 levels

And don't worry about the blurriness, I'm almost certain you will get better at it over time. Most of the time they are recoverable in PS as long as the pictures aren't too big (which makes the blurriness stand out even more). It could be two things, firstly it could be that you just aren't focusing lens-wise well enough, or you could have a shaky hand. Both will improve the more you use the camera. You could try a tripod or if you dont have one just set the camera on a flat stable surface and take a couple pictures to try and rule out shaky hand...

I think you've got a great eye for composition (from a few pictures of yours I've seen) ! The technicalities will come in time.

[Steph_B]

Canadian,
When you use the unsharp mask, do you happen to remember what amount, radius, and threshold you used? I am new to PS and don't really know what the standard settings for that are. Thanks.

Andrew.

The colors in this pic are really nice. And the composition works well too.

As far as sharpening is concerned, the parameters depend on the resolution of the pic you are working on. At 4000 dpi, I usually use 150-200%, 1.2 to 1.8 rad and a threshold of 4-8 depending on the subject. In general, you always need to sharpen your shots when displaying them on a computer screen. It is also advised to sharpen a little bit more the pic before printing them.

Cheers,

Steph.