Paperwhites

[slejhamer]

Highlights are a little bit blown out, even though I intentionally underexposed by 1/3 stop and used a diffuser on my light source. BG is gold posterboard. Added a touch of diffusion/soft focus in PS.

Constructive critiques appreciated.


http://members.cox.net/mschlesinger/paperwhites1.jpg

Narcissus tazetta

[Conk]

I don't think highlites are blown out at all. The photo is great and then you make it absolutely fantastic with the frame and diffusion. Great work!

[bigdave]

Very nice work, the colors are quite attractive. Overall it strikes me as exquisite, and well composed, especially with that nice gold background. However, I do have two minor suggestions. Please don't give my words too much weight either, because my forte is programming, and I'm just a novice photographer. My experience pales in comparison to your own, and what I say is only meant to suggest some things that your trained eye could review.

The highlights look great except in the lower left quarter of the photo. This seems to be a common problem when shooting white flowers. You may know more about PS than I do, but IMO the problem could be remedied with some color burn or some linear burn in the overexposed area. It won't fix it, but it should make it less apparent.

I believe that the photo would look even more beautiful, if the gold background were more smooth. Maybe you just wanted to give the viewer something more to look at, but in my eyes, it ooks kind of blotchy... then again, that may just be personal preference.

At first the frame looked strange, because I always expect it to signal the place where the photo ends and the decoration begins. Upon second glance, I realize that the border is not distracting, but complimentary. Your frame is creative and because it IS part of the photo, it works nicely with the central composition.

Again, wonderful photo, and please keep up the good work, I always enjoy your posts.

[slejhamer]

Conk wrote:
I don't think highlites are blown out at all.

COLIN:
That would have nothing to do with your inappropriately calibrated Adobe Gamma'd monitor, eh? HA! Got you back. :p


BIGDAVE:
You hit on all the key issues I have with this photo, but I am wondering if there are more that I don't see. I am not nearly as experienced as you suggest - just past my first year as a rookie - and am always open to constructive criticism!

You caught the clipped highlights at lower left. They have already been burned some! But they were overdone to begin with - in hindsight my main light was too low and too hot. In the full-size image there are still some details to be seen, so it is not quite as bad as what you see hear with resizing and jpegging.

I debated whether or not to smooth the background. The gold posterboard is not smoothly toned, so I left it as is. It looks leathery to me, and I thought it might have appeal in that context. (If I hadn't told you what it was, what would you have guessed?) Part of the splotchiness is blue-channel noise, too, even after I ran a noise reduction filter. I'm saving my pennies for a 10D and some prime L glass, but in the meantime I have to live with my G1 and its quirks.

I am not sure about the frame. This was an experiment, and I'm not convinced it works, but it is a little bit different so maybe that's enough. :) I actually added noise to the frame area to make it splotchy like the background, and then I ran the glass filter in PS to get the texturing you see.

Thanks to you both for your comments!