Pink flower

[shannonkelly2103]

I took this photo at Wallace Falls in the town of Gold Bar, Wa. The first is the original and the second I played with a little...

[peterst6906]

Hi Shannon,

I think you have the basis of a nice shot here.

The contrast of the pink against the green with the dark branch running at an angle could make for a really strong image.

What you did in the second version partly works, although I'd be interested to know what software you are using for your processing because some of the selective color has spilled over into the leaves and I think that a tighter result could be achieved if only the flower is color, if that is what you really were after. So depending on the software you are using, different people will be able to help you with the steps involved.

However, what I notice most about the second version is how much closer you cropped the shot. That's one of the big guidelines in composition, to get in close and remove anything from the frame that doesn't add value to the shot.

The lesson to take away from your own cropping in post would be to try to get in closer when you shoot the original photo. That will give you a much cleaner composition to begin with, but it will also give you better quality prints as you go large.

Also, with the branch running at a diagonal across the frame, the image has more impact than if you had it straight up and down or straight across from side to side. That to me, seems like a great decision you made to frame it that way.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Peter

[Goofup]

As Peter said you have the makings of a good photo here. I would've gotten a lot closer, blurred the background a lot more so the flower shows up, and IF you're going to a selective coloring, you need a hard-edged brush on the flower only. As it is, the coloring "bleeds" over into the background. (I can post a version- if you don't mind).

[shannonkelly2103]

Goofup, I don't mind if you post an edited version. That's what I was going for but I don't have the greatest photo editing program. Right now I'm working with Picaso, that I downloaded from Google, and GIMP that I downloaded for free just to get me started. GIMP is a little more technical and I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm working with it. I worked on the photo a little more (below).

[shannonkelly2103]

Peter,
I forgot to mention, everything that you explained to me that I should do is what I wanted to do...I just don't have the skill yet Also, when I took that picture I was holding the camera way over my head with my arm stretched as far as it would go....the flower was about two feet over my head burried in the bushes. I saw that flower when my husband and I were hiking. That was the only one I saw on our hike and it made me smile because it was the first sign of Spring Thank you for your suggestions. I wish someone could actually be in the room with me showing me how to use my photo editing programs.

[Goofup]

You got in closer, that's good. i'm not sure about the placement of the flower though. I've cropped it so the flower isn't so close to the edge and not centered horizonally. You've got that great diagonal branch running through the picture, put it to use!

As for the coloring, it still looks like you're using a soft-edged eraser. You need to pick a hard edged one, crank the opacity up to 100%, and zoom in to erase the BW from just the flower. Also if the eraser you're using has a "hardness" setting, go 100%.

In addition, what I did was select the flower and branch, then invert the selection so just the background selected, and applied a Gaussain Blur.

Here's what I'm talking about:

[shannonkelly2103]

That looks great. I've really got to play around with GIMP.

[DesertNomad]

I like Goofup's crop, a lot less negative space that really did not add anything to the photo. It is a tad centered in this one too, but I am not sure you could get the perfect composition without a re-shoot due to the angle it was shot at.

Overall, I think the selective desaturation is interesting but I don't think it worked well in this particular image. Somehow, the pink doesn't look good against black and white that is. As a hint for next time, try spraying the flower with a bit of water to create some dew, and on the post processing side you could also try reduced saturation on the background instead of full desaturation.

G