Matchbox with burnt match

[lowmagnet]

Hi all,

I was messing around with a more 'studio' situation in my home (miserable weather does that) and I came up with this picture of a matchbox with a burnt match:

http://lowmag.net/7mp/Matches/Matches.jpg

Hand-held shot, 50mm 2.5 EF Macro, ISO 800, 1/125s @ f/4
Lighting was a compact fluorescent, colour correction via WhiBal card

Anyway, I was messing around with ways to make this photo look less bright and more moody, and I came up with this:

http://lowmag.net/7mp/Matches/Matches-PS.jpg

I can easily re-take the photo once I get my camera back, but I wanted to see what you all think about the shot.

-eli

[ajbalazic]

Your edit is very good. Well done. I can't think of anything I would change in a re-shoot.

[Hellashot]

The contrast between used and not used match gets lost in the B&W shot.

[lowmagnet]

Adjusted curve to open up the bottom-end contrast and lightened the channel mix to 75%

http://lowmag.net/7mp/Matches/Matches-PS2.jpg