single photos 2011-10-11_00001

Maria,

I know you like flowers... (who doesn't like them?)

But flowers require a more careful treatment than other nature made things in order to make them stand the test of the viewers. This is because their main features are shape and color. As a photographer you have to try to avoid distracting backgrounds (not a problem here) and ensure a very good color rendering without harsh shadows.

Flash is a really poor lighting source for flowers: color rendering isn't great and shadows are really strong. You have two options here:

• If indoors, use a bouncing flash (if you are not using the built-in flash) -- the more diffuse light will reduce the shadows and will spread more uniformly shrouding the flowers.
• If natural light is available, try to use it even if this means increasing the sensitivity to ISO 800 or even more (for a good DSLR camera).

For your photo - a bit underexposed, I would suggest some post-processing: balance the histogram first by increasing the "exposure" (brightness) about 20...25%, then change the toning to warm to enhance the reds a little. You may need to increase the color saturation to "vivid" style as well. It helps flowers to "pop out".

I attached a modest attempt to follow what I just mentioned. If you take RAW shots, you should try to do the processing before converting to JPEG in order to use the whole dynamic range and to reduce any artifacts.

What do you think?

thanks!

yup, I am taking RAW (although for this reason I've run out many times of space).

Your improvement looks great indeed, I did not think this was a great photo ...

When taking photos with Fuji I used to make "autocolor" in DTP, but with Nikon it turned out that this makes things worse, ie burn out colours and so, so preffered to leave them as they are - didn't thought that it can become like this