Eggplant - Still Life

Playing around with some older shots...comments welcome!

Very nice still-life, Kim! Regards, Ruud.

You gave such elegance to this eggplant, Kim. Love the golden glow.

Beautiful look to this Kim. May I ask what technique you used to get this look?

Here's the original for comparison - I didn't do anything on the crop at all. I cloned out the flaws on the eggplant; made two layers, one slightly underexposed and brought back only the eggplant as in the original exposure. Then I burned around the edges and the background to almost completely darken it. Used the paintbrush to tone down the hot spots and I think that was about it.

Kim, this is very good, you have given me an idea, as I just bought one of these this morning. Hope you don't mind....Jim

I don't mind at all, Jim - go for it! Hope you'll let me know if you post one so I can check it out.

Excelente imagen, bello encuadre, perfecta luz, color y gran composicion, un cordial saludo Kim.

Thanks, Julio!

Beautiful rendition,Kim. Thanks for posting the original image and the process of tranforming an edible vegetable to an work of art. I remember to have seen an image of eggplant earlier in your portfolio.But don't find it now:-(

AK, it's there under "single photos". It's a horizontal shot, but taken same time and is the same plant. Thanks for visiting.

Kim this is beautifull, very beautifull

 

kind regards Els

Thank you so much for the information. You're a credit to PN! Looking forward to seeing more art from you!!!

And now you have completely convinced me that I have to learn more about using layers in photoshop!! Thanks for your description of what you did here. It's a really nice still shot. My thinking was that it's very well lit. :-)

Nice work, CS makes this so simple, were you around when all we had was PS 5 ! Boy, we had to really work hard to get anything as nice as this...photo net has really changed as well, when I first started if you did anything to an image there was hell to pay...now just the reverse ! Hummm, guess we call this progress...;^}

Thanks, guys and gals! Roger, I love PS! I've been working with it since PS V6 and now use CS2. I only did the basics at first, but the past couple of years, I do nothing but play and play! The more you learn, the more you realize there is to learn! PN has been a great place to learn new techniques. I never knew what quadtones were until I saw a picture and someone nicely told me step by step how to do that. Now I have about 24 personal quadtones saved. I will never be an expert, but PS is a great boon to photographers!

Kim, this eggplant definitely looks too good to eat! I can see it hanging in my dining room. . . the bronzed toning and warm glow make this an exceptional still life! All your effort into pushing the limits in PS is paying off. .

Great use of natural light and a little PS touch up.

Gorgeous! Eggplant isn't something you see photographed everyday. Well done!

Studio lights ! Magic, I can hardly wait to see what you come up with now !!!!

Roger, I'm excited - going to work on an area to set up as a studio this weekend. LOTS to learn, but that's a good thing.

 

Thanks for all the positive comments on this shot, everyone.

Wow! Your work has really made a masterpiece out of a ho hum image. 'Quadtones' sound interesting - what do you mean by that?

Lucy, almost any of my photos that look like they are sepia or are monochrome, were made using quadtones. In PS, you go to mode/grayscale, then back to mode/duotones. From there, you can have a combination of up to 4 colors and then can save each set that you come up with.

As so many others have stated - Great creation. Being an expert with PS does not create expert images, you need the talent to apply the correct adjustments and know when to stop. It would seem that your mind's eye and the talent to translate the abstract into something concrete is your key to consistly great photos and creations. Dave

Thanks, Dave. PS only works when you have a decent image to start with most of the time.