I haven't felt like a virgin in a LONG time

[omama]

:blushing:
My first sharing post ever and I so happy to finally find a beginner forum, YAHOO!!!
So...Hello from a gramma with a point n shoot for now. Grandkids are out of state and the cats are too fast, I'm trying to learn on whats in my garden.
1


2

3

And I see I need to learn more about posting pic, sorry.

 

[Alpha]

Damn it. Now that song is stuck in my head.

hey! touched for the very first time...

anyone else wanna jump in?

 

[Robin]

On the first one, the lighting doesn't right, is it artificial?

The second one is very nice but my favorite is the third, the head on shot of the spiraling petals really takes your eye through the photo. My only complaint would be it looks a tad flat - if you pull the darker areas (the greens and background) a little bit darker but anchor your highlights so they don't blow out, it will make the flower stand out that much more. If that's too much techno mumbo jumbo for you, I can post an edit of what I mean.

Or you can just tell me I'm being entirely too picky!

 

[omama]

Thank you for looking and Please edit away. They are all in my garden with some dappled light.. I think thats why the first one had a blown bit. I did some levels and curves and tight cropping, so far thats all I'm comfortable with in elements.

 

[Keith Baran]

I'm a total newb so my technical assestment isn't worth much, but I like the pictures
#1) the light on the middle top petal seems blown out, but there is a nice contrast between the light and the shadows in that pic.
#2) IMO the framing isn't correct, I think the whole flower in the pic would have been nice, the center nice and sharp with blurred outer petals.
3) Absolutley Wonderful!

 

[Overread]

I suggest reading about the unsharpen mask and noise removal/reduction as well with regard to editing - those along with curves, levels and cropping and a bit of saturation increasing are very key editing points
a good read is this site:
http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/articles.htm

As for the first shot I would guess you used your flash for this possibly - if you did I find that a bit of folded toilet paper infront of the flash helps to break up the light and make it softer. If it was shot with the sun then I would try shooting later in the day when the sunlight is less harsh

 

[Robin]

Okay, here's an edit, I put them side by side because the edits are subtle but I think it makes a difference. I also took someone else's advice and added a slight unsharp mask.

If you want to see what I did with the curves (before the unsharp mask was applied): Curves

Unsharp mask was set to Amount 200, Radius 0.2, Threshold 0

I hope I'm not being too picky but when you have a great photo like this, I just think it's best to tweak it to perfection

 

[omama]

Thank you Robin, I love the edit and I do see the improvement, the color looks better and I have been trying out the unsharp mask also.
And Overread, thank you for the links and suggestions...wow I have learned so much for my first day! I appreciate all the comments and now I'm pretty sure that I'm permanently hooked.