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Questions to guide your feedback
I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do here. Whether it was worth doing is a different question. Initial reactions pro or con will be appreciated.
Other Information
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Image Description
Even though this is what I aimed for, a part of me thinks it’s a little too poster-y, for lack of a better term.
Technical Details
This one is basically a composite of three images, plus a lot of curves layers and two hue/saturation layers. The heron was originally a photo of a petroglyph.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Interesting, Don. It has some kind of pop-art feel to it to me (I think that’s the genre, but to tell the truth I’m not very familiar with modern art). The contrast between the extremely simplified geometry of the trees and heron with the textured walls is interesting and I really like what you did with the tinting of the water as you move toward the horizon.
That is quite out there, Don! It has an interesting contrast of energy (from all the angled lines) and serenity (from the cool colors and “still” water).
It does feel “poster-y”, as you put it, because it’s so graphic. I wouldn’t say it’s too much, though, for what you created.
At first glance I thought this isn’t a style that I go for, but it has intrigue and it piqued my interest and drew me in to look at it closer. And I find that the more I look at it, the more I see, and definitiely the more I like it. I like how you have reduced every thing in the scene to its elemental shape. Your color choices makes the scene feel very much like either a sunrise or sunset. It is playful, well done! Now I want to make one!
And thanks, now I have Dire Straits “Money for Nothin’” looping in my head now
This is really cool Don! Did you start out with an image or was this generated completely from scratch? I love the graphic quality of it. Good to see the head of the bird (egret?) above the ridge line.
Thanks, Alfredo. This didn’t start with any single photograph. I started with a mental image of what I wanted to see in the frame. I did a lot of sketches to refine the idea. Then I opened a new document in Photoshop and tried to piece the image together.
I combined three photos and added a lot of curves layers using the polygonal lasso tool. As I mentioned, the heron came from a photo of a heron petroglyph, which was already simplified. The tree branches came from a photo of tree branches; I simplified them with curves layers. The canyon walls came from photos of rocks. The “sun” is a hue/saturation layer selected with a radial gradient.
Originally, the canyon walls and the edges of the stream were triangles defined by the polygonal lasso. It didn’t work well. I started over twice. Finally I used the PS paintbrush to draw in the shapes of the canyon walls and stream as a first step and assembled everything else within those shapes.
