misc Lily

The first and only flower photo Ive ever taken. Tell me what you

think. Cheers.

can you lower the contrast and brighten to bring up the foliage?

I'm wondering if this looks different on other peoples monitors? I would have self rated this a 5 or a 6 but people obviously dont share that opinion! :) I increased the contrast and burned selectively to bring out the main leaves and flower, theres heaps more colour/tone info in there but I thought this was the best way to present it. Any other thoughts? Thanks for looking.

I think the difference may be more in the sense of aesthetics than in the characteristics of monitors. Everyone has more patience for dramatic subtlty in their own photos than in other people's. Would you attach the original to your response?

Heres the original as you requested. Thanks for your comments and your time. Regards.

I hope you don't mind, but I gave it a try. It is difficult to keep the foliage separate from the flower, but I think this may be better. I have applied a 50-pixel-width high-pass filter in photoshop to the original at the resolution you provided. Then I increased contrast by using "curves" to take 65% black to 100% black. It is now easier to see into the darker areas. What do you think?

Hey Jamie, I dont mind, thanks! I see what you've done and it looks good, I guess your goal is to illuminate more of the area surrounding the lily whereas my goal was to isolate it from the surroundings. Thanks again. Best Regards.

IMHO I like the darker version better. I think there is too much going on with the ground cover and makes it to busy or messy and making it darker removes a lot of the mess. In the original what atracted me to the image was the sence of light growing out of the darknes and adds a little emotional impact to the image. My only nit is I think there are too many blown highlights. I like the color version for the simplistic beauty that you have captured but I like the crop and tonality of the B&W version for the emotional impact.

 

Don

Hey Don thanks for commenting. That is definitely something I think could be improved... I think I used colour burn to darken the background when I probably should have just used normal/darken. Didnt look too realistic though. Might give it another shot. Cheers.

Hi Jay, I did know that that was what you were going for, but I still thought the spatial imbalance in the information content was responsible for the low ratings. This one is closer to what you wanted, I think. It has been high-passed at 30 pixels, darkened linearly (55->100), and brightened a just a hair with curves.

Thanks again Jamie for your time and suggestions. Regards.