How I Critique a Photograph
Over at the Digital Photography School fora, I critique a fair amount of photographs. But for some reason, I got to thinking about the way I do it and comparing it to the way it seems that other people are critiquing. So for those who are interested, here is the process I go through when I critique.
- What is my initial reaction? Even if the photograph is meant to be confusing or super artistic with a message (think Malevich’s Black Square), there is still an initial reaction. This includes things that just jump out at me as being good or bad.
- Where do my eyes go? It doesn’t matter if you have the coolest looking thing ever on the right side of your frame if my eyes keep going to the left.
- How is the lighting? This is where the mandatory Photoshop work comes in. On 95% of the photographs that I critique, I copy and paste them into Photoshop, open up the curves tool, and see how it looks when I hit Auto. The automatic setting is surprisingly on, so it’s a good judge to go by.
- How are the colors? A lot of the time the colors could use some boosting. A brightness/contrast adjustment layer might not be the best choice for doing final work but it works great for this.
- What post processing techniques would look good? Blurring the background, making it look like a painting, this is the catch all stage for stuff like that. I don’t do it, I just say what comes to mind.
- What final thoughts do I have? Since I type the critique while I’m doing stuff, I might have some more thoughts that would be helpful. I add those to the end.
And there you have my process for critiquing a photograph.
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Love this post, Chris! I’m a rather structured personality, very “type A” … but have never really thought about my photo critique process. This is a great reminder of the things to keep in mind!