Second edit on photo C&C

[Compaq]

Here follows the first edit that I was told was too busy, hard on contrast, hard on edges etc etc. So I decided to give it another go today, as I've learned more in photoshop than burning, dodging, curves etc.


IMG_0850 edit by Bokehliciousness-ness, on Flickr

I took the RAW file, did some adjustments, primarily lowered the clarity slider. I loaded it in PS, copied background layer and applied a layer mask to the copied layer. To the copy I applied a rather heavy gaussian blur, which I painted away in the layer mask. Also, I did a little crop and a little curves adjustment.

How's this?


IMG_0850 edit mask by Bokehliciousness-ness, on Flickr


Thank you fro your help!

 

[MissCream]

Not good. Sorry to sound harsh but you can CLEARLY see where you painted away the blur from the flowers. Scrap it and try again with less blur and maybe crop it in portrait.

 

[Compaq]

I see. If I was a little more accurate in painting away the blur, would it still be bad?

 

[MissCream]

Yeah, the blur looks really fake unfortunately

 

[MissCream]

Maybe use a little bit of lens blur and desaturate the background just a bit.

 

[Compaq]

IMG_0850 edit mask 2 by Bokehliciousness-ness, on Flickr


?

 

[Compaq]

Perhaps the bigger question is: is this photo at all usable, or am I wasting my time trying to edit it?

 

[Tomasko]

Go away from your computer, enjoy the weather and then come back, sit back in your chair and look at it again. It's just plain bad...

 

[Compaq]

Oh snap, haha

 

[MissCream]

Yeah I was wrong about the portrait cropping. Here is my try at it

 

[Dao]

I think ...... maybe try to reshoot again if possible. See if you can find an angle that the subject can isolate more from the background.

 

[Compaq]

I think ...... maybe try to reshoot again if possible. See if you can find an angle that the subject can isolate more from the background.

Nahh, this flower's dead. Perhaps next summer, lol

MissCream, that looks like the first image in this thread with a more blurred and desaturated background, yes? It is not as busy as mine, and the flower stands more out. Perhaps that's the way to go.
I'll save it for tonight, I'm put in timeout by Tomasko

 

[The_Traveler]

Compaq,

It is hard for me to really home in on why this picture doesn't seem to work for me but maybe it's a combination of things.
I really like to know what the photographer is looking at directly and this bunch of flowers in the foreground has 3 or 4 flowers presented sort of equally but they don't seem to be in any good relationship to each other.
Second - one's eye is attracted by three things, items in focus, bright light and vivid color. Here the background has two out of three so matter how fuzzy it is, the background pulls my eye.

MissCream's rework takes these things into account by defocusing the background and decreasing it's brightness and contrast but there still a bit of confusion.
I'm a big believer that the brain takes signals from the content without consciously being aware of it.
In her picture the two most prominent flowers, the ones I would tend to look at, have petals that are collapsed across the center, so that the center isn't visible.

The reaction of my sub-conscious lizard brain is that you can't be wanting me to look at that flower because it doesn't show well. What could you want me to look at?
So I don't know where to focus my attention, my eye keeps wandering looking for what you were looking at.

My opinion is that, even in taking a picture of a mass of things, like this, at least one item should be perfectly displayed so that the viewer can fix his/her eye on that as the real center of interest - and the rest of the similar objects to add information.

I'm sorry if this is a bit ambiguous but I've been working out a schema of ideas on this composition stuff and I haven't gotten it down in the best possible wording yet.
I do hope it makes some sense.

Lew

 

[Compaq]

How about a black background?

 

[The_Traveler]

Which flower are we supposed to look at?