Water Lily on Black

Image Critiques Flora Critiques
1

I posted a “photo art” version of this in Photo Art. This is the “straight” version. Am debating which version to go with. Opinions appreciated. I did not like the surround of the flower and could not decide how to crop/frame it, until I did the Photo Art version.

Technical:

D800, 300 mm f4 at 7.1, 1/1250 sec, ISO 1250. Handheld.

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
2

Hi Kathy,

You captured a very nicely colored water lily. The blues, yellows, and orange colors work well in the scene. I would remove that vertical stem in the BG or make it less obvious as my only nit. It tends to grab my eye…Jim

3

Hi Jim

Thanks

Thats what bothered me. If you look at the Photo Art version, it got changed to something less noticeable, at least in my opinion.

Im not that good at removing objects like this , when they touch on something else. Don’t know if anyone has any suggestions about that. I thought about darkening it but then you have the leave there…

Thanks
Kathy

4

Kathy, I agree with Jim. If I want to remove or modify something in the background, I first select the subject to a separate layer. Once you’ve done that, you can not only treat each layer differently, but you can subdue or change anything in the BG much more easily, without going over the edge of the subject. Even if you do, the subject edges aren’t affected because you are working under them.

5

Phil

Thank you. I have never done that , what a great tip! More googling and utube videos in my future! Winter is here in Colorado basically so I will have time.

6

Kathy: I don’t have much to add and do agree about the stuff up top. I think it would also be fairly easy to clone/paint over the stems and brown leaf. This is a beautiful subject nicely captured.>=))>

7

Absolutely gorgeous processing!! I had not seen this image, glad that I came across it - very nicely done!