Succulents

Nice. Kind of has an HDR feel to it doesn't it? You might darken the bright green diagonal piece a bit.

OK, here's an attempt of a critique by someone who has 1/200th as many posts as you have.
[Bowing to the master.]

The colors are great. Some might say underexposed, but I like it the way it is.

The central bloom has nice DOF. I'd consider a tighter crop on it because I find the bloom on upper left is also in sharp focus and that competes for my interest...but it's not as interesting and the center bloom. The bloom on the lower left (also in focus) is a bit brighter in its center...that also takes a bit of my attention away from the central bloom.

Some day I hope to have stuff this good to post.
Thanks for sharing and showing us what's possible.

dave

I agree with cpam, love it but something was bugging, he caught it...

Nice image!

Wonderful lighting and deeply saturated colors/tones that look so good when saturated. And yet you've maintained the subtle rim colors on the petals (are they petals on succulents?). A classic formal type image that works very well for me.

A couple of things I wish weren't there - that brighter green leaf center right and the brighter red highlight on the far right.

Thanks for the suggestions, this is the version that is going to show. Clickable link as in previous version.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.frogdawg.co​m/p802948353/e8a1edf6

Dan i think the last version is a winner. Would look very nice on metallic print

Your second shot shows me that there are two possible directions to take this photo.

1. Concentrate everything on the center bloom and get rid of the other distractions.
2. Improve the "distractions" [By brightening] until they seem to be an integral part of the work.

I think the treatment in #2 is the opposite of the suggestions I gave originally because it went in the other direction. This was also an excellent place to end up.

Good luck with your contest!

Dave

I like the first image the best. To me, it looks like a image I would see in a book or magazine.
The second image kinda looks like rainbow balloons at a Halloween party.

SimpleJack wrote in post #14017252
I like the first image the best. To me, it looks like a image I would see in a book or magazine.
The second image kinda looks like rainbow balloons at a Halloween party.

I'm curious about the radical differences you are seeing between the first picture and the second. The only differences are the removal of the small speckles on the flowers, burning in of the previously suggested items that were too bright and small blur mask around the border to slightly darken and de-emphasize the edges and increase the center brightness by 7%.

I wouldn't go so far as to relate the second one to rainbow balloons......

but it does look a bit brighter. And more than 7% I think...

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Both as posted by OP. Helps to look at them in "side-by-side".

Dave....it is probably 14%....the slider is at 50 for no enhancement.....49 would darken it....I went to 57....

I would guess it's not a linear scale....the center of those succulents is considerably brighter on the re-edit. Some of them are actually blown in small areas.

What did you edit it in?

Edited in PSE9 using some homegrown creative sidecars.