grapes.. please critique

what else can i do to this to make it pop? so far i've only done the basics: exposure, levels, a little sharpening, crop, and border. thanks!

F/5.6, 1/2 sec, 82mm, ISO-100.

I like the contrast in colors, and the d.o.f. very much. Looks like something off a bottle of wine

potn_momma2 wrote in post #6346755
I like the contrast in colors, and the d.o.f. very much. Looks like something off a bottle of wine

i agree.. you could see something ike this in a winery ad or something.

very nice. and i like your processing on it.

very beautiful photo.

Hecster - this is a GREAT shot! Good impact, framing, color ... I like everything about it. I pulled a copy and tried a few things in Photoshop such as a bit more color saturation ... a soft light overly ... etc., but frankly it's great as is.

If you think it needs it, bring color saturation up a small bit or warm the overall tone a touch by adding a warming filter to it (this looks like it may have been taken on a cloudy day) but I'd hang it on my wall if I'd taken it. Well done!

Way too much too look at. Too many clumps of grapes, too many bright leaves, too many stems and OOF leaves. The eyes cannot settle anywhere because they is too busy bouncing around. Simplify. Watch out for OOF and brightly lit leaves. Watch out for ugly stumps of stems. The image should be clean and basically only one beautiful clump of grapes should show with a minimum of leaves to tell the story.

Benji

This is how I try to shoot'em. Lots of pop. Lots of contrast. LOTS of Detail where detail was intended. I like how my eye lands on the subject and wonders around within the rest of the image and then comes back to settle on the subject. It's a definite keeper. I wouldn't change anything.

Thanks! i appreciate all the feedback and critique! I'm trying to hone my skills both in composition as well as pp, and from the feedback so far it sounds like i'm on the right track.

Benji wrote in post #6347678
Way too much too look at. Too many clumps of grapes, too many bright leaves, too many stems and OOF leaves. The eyes cannot settle anywhere because they is too busy bouncing around. Simplify. Watch out for OOF and brightly lit leaves. Watch out for ugly stumps of stems. The image should be clean and basically only one beautiful clump of grapes should show with a minimum of leaves to tell the story.

Benji

I will agree. The group of leaves directly to the right of the main foreground (in focus) grapes are so bright they pull the eye over there upon first look. They compete with the subject which is the grapes, pulling attention from them. PP the pic to pull the eye to the grapes, thru cropping and toning down those and other leaves. It's a good pic, but might benefit from PP to better highlight the main subject.

here's a second go at bringing focus back to the main subject of the photo. I think this works better, but feel like i have oversaturated the grapes. thoughts?

hecster wrote in post #6352746
here's a second go at bringing focus back to the main subject of the photo. I think this works better, but feel like i have oversaturated the grapes. thoughts?

And this, my friend, is a knockout pic. I might bring that leaf to the right down just a little tad more, but this is really very good. Pulls your eyes to the grapes instantly while making your mouth water at the same time!

I agree with previous comments and think the last edit is a big improvement.
I do think the light reflected off the leaves is still a little too bright, you could try a layer to bring the levels down on these.....

I liked the tonality on the first shot. It looks like bumping up the sat or contrast loses some of it. Beautiful colour. Two thumbs up

P.s. - excellent crop, very effective. Looks like you bumped up the grapes a little, too. Nice.

thanks all! valuable lessons learned here. i love this forum.

Hey hecster,
I hope the one thing that you're getting out of this if nothing else is how subjective this type of thing can be! LOL!!! Personally, I like the original much better than the edit. Something you may wish to try for that added "pop" on the original,aside from maybe tweaking the saturation or levels just a tich is, if you're using Photoshop, go under "Image" and then "Adjustments" and open the Shadow/Highlight tool. Make sure you have the "Show More Options" box checked and you will see at the bottom a slider to adjust Midtone Contrast....try bumping that up just a little bit. A lot of folks will do something similar with Curves, but I find this much easier to give the image just a little extra zing .

If you want another handy-dandy little tip, also try duplicating the layer and with the new layer, apply the High Pass filter with the slider set to around 2.5 or so and then change that filter's layer property to "Overlay" (you may need to tweak back the opacity and/or Fill just a bit afterwards).

Alrighty, I hope this helps!
Jim