|
| Group |
Round |
C/R |
Comment |
Date |
Image |
| 63 |
Jul 23 |
Comment |
Great image of these birds. I am guessing though that they are not both cardinals (and yes, you did not claim that they were a pair of cardinals). Great color and composition, although I think that one could crop in a bit from the right. Your focus was spot on, and your background soft yet clear enough to provide context. Nice Job ! |
Jul 9th |
| 63 |
Jul 23 |
Comment |
Fun image. It's abstract enough to peak my interest as to a) what is the image, and b) what might I believe is there. Stems and leaves or mountains and trees? If you have my mind working, then you have done your job. |
Jul 9th |
| 63 |
Jul 23 |
Comment |
This is quite a striking and interesting image. Good composition and color. I don't disagree with Murphy's thoughts although I am not bothered by the slight softness in the petals. Here I think is actually works for you giving a slight sense of depth. The bloom is a bit contrasty, and if it were my image, I would be tempted to bring out a bit more detail in the darker areas of the bloom. I would also lighten the stem and buds a bit, and darken the background behind the stem/buds to improve their separation from the background. Remember we don't need to accept everything that our camera captures in crafting our images.
Sorry to see you go, but enjoy the next Study Group you participate in. |
Jul 9th |
 |
| 63 |
Jul 23 |
Comment |
As already stated, the image does seem to lack a sense of depth, and I wonder why we all feel so. I suspect that you may have darkened the flowers a bit, due to the washed-out gray tones within the flowers, to try to build in more separation from the butterfly, but this does not seem to obliviate the issue. Perhaps if one also blurred and desaturated the background some that might help a bit. I gave this a try but I not sure that it made things better (see below). I am guessing that here you had a very busy background, and you tried to build some selected separation between the background and subject by only allowing some of the flowers to show through. Not too sure if this effort was successful based upon the impression viewers are providing though. Sometimes the camera does get the better of us all. |
Jul 9th |
 |
| 63 |
Jul 23 |
Reply |
I shot this image with the idea that I would be changing the surface and backdrop in the image in post-processing. Here I purchased a roll of neutral gray paper and covered a few cheap foam-core boards with the paper. These became my surface and backdrop for the shoot. In post-processing I added separate images of a wood surface (adding the appropriate perspective) and of a textured background, to the layer stack using the "overlay" blend mode. In this blend mode the neutral gray color disappeared, leaving the subject, surface (or background) content, subjects and shadows nicely blended behind. In doing so this makes it easier to concentrate upon the lighting and composition of the scene while shooting, and less so upon the setting elements. This method was suggested to me by Joel Grimes (and others) and eliminated the need to collect and employ a wide variety of table surfaces and backgrounds. |
Jul 9th |
| 63 |
Jul 23 |
Reply |
I can't argue with you regarding whether this is truly a "close-up" image. I am pushing the definition a bit, but I thought it might be worth the effort here. |
Jul 7th |
4 comments - 2 replies for Group 63
|
| 75 |
Jul 23 |
Reply |
This does not need to be the case. It depends upon how detailed you make your mask when adding a different background. In the case of many of my macro images, I often need to create a mask that includes each and every stem hair on the stem, so these essential elements are not lost. Generally, I need to do this by hand, painting in each hair in my mask. I have not found an automatic masking tool that does this to my satisfaction. It's not difficult, but it does take time. But it retails a critical "Wow" factor in my images. |
Jul 5th |
0 comments - 1 reply for Group 75
|
4 comments - 3 replies Total
|
