Thanks for looking, Igor, and thanks especially for your detailed and thought-provoking comments.
I did not intentionally place the flower off-center. As you know, I am frequently criticized here for +too much centering of the focal point of the image, and I plead guilty to that charge. Here, I cropped the image first, to eliminate some distracting elements near the bloom, and then I decided to burn out the background completely, leading to the composition that you see. When I get time, I may try to go back to the raw image and redo the whole thing to see if I can come up with a different, and perhaps better, image. Thanks also for looking and commenting on the dogwood bud image. I agree about the highlights. While they are burned out in some areas, that tend to illustrate how they are standing out on the bare branches exposed to the sun. Dan Matyola http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 2:10 PM, Igor PDML-StR <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dan, > > I like the color and the rendering of it. > I actually use that type of background removal time-to-time in LR. > > I have two thoughts: > 1. I am thinking if a bit of edge sharpening (e.g. via unsharpen mask, or > sharpening with a mask) would make it standing out a bit better. (Maybe not, > I'd play with that.) > > 2. I have some unease with the framing. > I know that some people have problems with the central positioning of a > signle object in a photo. While I agree that it can look too "trivial". But > I am more disturbed with an "artificial" off-center positioning. > > That's the case here. The placement of the flower looks unnatural for me. > That's just an impression, but I can give a few logical arguments why. > In this case, the flower is mostly symmetric itself. The slight asymmetry in > the stem is barely visible (especially since the stem is darkened). > So, the off-center placing looks very artificial. > Also, the proportions of the photos itself seem to be odd (or maybe it is > the result of that off-center placement). > > In contrast, the dogwood bud looks just fine, because of the tilt and > the additional steam (bud?). [The only thing in that other photo is that I'd > let a bit more of the stem in, so that that other piece is not almost > unconnected.) > Speaking of that flower photo, there seem to be some burned-out highlights, > but I think they actually give an interesing look to that flower, - as if it > were lit by a stadium/stage spot-light. > > > Best regards, > > Igor > > > > Daniel J. Matyola Sun, 26 Apr 2015 21:45:07 -0700 wrote: > > http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=18013021&size=md > K-5 II S, FA 100 mm F2.8 Macro > Comments are invited. > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
