overexposed?

[Broncobear]

http://static.flickr.com/139/323591400_d2d8b45e87_o.jpg

[AirBrontosaurus]

It looks a tad overexposed, yes.

Personally, I think you have some excellent lighting there, but you're losing some of the effect because of the brightness. I hope you don't mind, but I changed a few things in PS that I felt accented the great lighting you had.

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/4448/323591400d2d8b45e87ohn6.jpg

[Broncobear]

Thanks Bronto, always a pleasure to hear from you :-)

[dpastern]

Well, I couldn't resist. I did a basic colour balance using thresholds/curves, adjusted contrast (+2), and decreased brightness (-7) a little bit, then did a basic saturation increase (+2). I then also adjusted the saturation for the blue layer, to +13%. I then did a overlay layer, opacity set to 50% and burned in detail in the Blue sapphire gem. A simple USM (53%, 0.3 and 0) and voila. It looks quite similar to Chris's attempt.

Dave

[AirBrontosaurus]

Great minds think alike, i guess ;).