More critique wanted

tlittleton

It's spring in South Texas and the prickly pears are starting to bloom.

bfjr

It's sharp where it should be, I like the colors. The backgound bothers me, IMO it should either be sharp or totally OOF, this background is somewhere inbetween and keeps distracting me from the subject.

But of course I haven't a clue as to what I'm doing, so take this with a lb. of salt

Thanks for sharing

Jerry Curtis

bfjr wrote:

It's sharp where it should be, I like the colors. The backgound bothers me, IMO it should either be sharp or totally OOF, this background is somewhere inbetween and keeps distracting me from the subject.

But of course I haven't a clue as to what I'm doing, so take this with a lb. of salt

Thanks for sharing

Agreed... if you don't have the option of a shallower depth of field, you might want to find an angle where the background is farther away. The bottom part of the picture has the background really OOF, which is good, but in the top portion, the background needs to be more OOF.

rutt

There's nothing wrong here than can't be easily fixed in post.

1. LAB curves
2. L curve: steepen highlights and midtones to bring out flower texture, Deepen shadows to add drama.
3. A+B curves: symetrical steepening to add saturation.
4. Sharpen with techniques from my tutorials: here and here. Part 2 in particular

Better image quality, but still not much tension in the composition. What about a crop:



My crop is just a quickie to show that it might be a good idea to play around with cropping....

bfjr

rutt wrote:

There's nothing wrong here than can't be easily fixed in post.

1. LAB curves
2. L curve: steepen highlights and midtones to bring out flower texture, Deepen shadows to add drama.
3. A+B curves: symetrical steepening to add saturation.
4. Sharpen with techniques from my tutorials: here and here. Part 2 in particular

Better image quality, but still not much tension in the composition. What about a crop:



My crop is just a quickie to show that it might be a good idea to play around with cropping....

This one
Nice job again, Rutt

tlittleton

Thanks for the advice everyone. I may just make it to a second rate photographer with all of the pro help here!

tlittleton

I followed your sharpening tutorial rutt, but I'm kind of new at using LAB mode in Photoshop. Here's a new one that was shapened a bit and cropped down a little. Also took Ben's advice and found a background that was farther away so that it was totally out of focus. The only thing I'm not thrilled with on this one is the brightness. If I try to increase the brightness, it blows out the color and detail on the flower itself. Still a work in progress though...

bfjr

You done good
really like this one threw in a bee for good measure, excellent
One question whats that thing (if you know ) comin out that bee's butt ? :lol

tlittleton

I tried to get it more into focus, but the bee was moving around too much. He wouldn't stand still...

Anyway, he was covered in pollen, and I thought it was a filament from the stamen of the flower...probably stuck to some of the pollen on the bee. But after getting a few stuck in my finger, I think it's actually a thorn. Some of the smaller thinner thorns come out of the cactus with very litle coaxing. It does look sort of weird doesn't it...

gus

Nice shot

Good eating...we used to eat the fruit all the time as kids. Gotta know what your doing though.

tlittleton

We like to say that they have built in toothpicks