Reality vs ? C & C, please!

[Hartley]

Hi Y'all,

I was showing my mother-in-law some of my pictures, and she asked me if I had any "really bright colored" ones.. I looked, but sunrises & sunsets were about it, and that wasn't what she wanted..

Then I got to thinking - I had a few shots of some neat little cacti in flower:

So I fed this image into Pse8, cropped a bit and gave the saturation slider a mighty shove:

I also tried a closer crop..

Though that one will not print out very big before the pixels get out of hand - these were taken with my old 5 mP camera.

I usually prefer realism to "art", at least in photography, but I think these might be OK, especially since she has an "all beige" house she wants to perk up.. What do you think?

Hartley

 

[rusty9]

ouch. overdid it.

 

[LittleMike]

Next time try moving the slider 1/8 what you did this time

 

[dak1b]

the last two r overexposed.

these pics aren't that appealing.

 

[Hartley]

Um, the last two were made from the first one..

But the intent was "bright", not "real".. I'll try one with less saturation..

 

[DennyCrane]

Yeah, find a middle ground in the saturation boost there. Like HDR, the best picture is the one you don't know is edited.

 

[Hartley]

OK guys,

Here's one with rather less "boost":

Does that work better?

Hartley

 

[LittleMike]

Much better

 

[DennyCrane]

Vastly improved.