Blue & Gold

[John Cooper]

When the flowering season for Canola and 'Riverina Blue-bell' coincide they make for an interesting colour contrast.

Canon EOS 10D, Canon 17-40mm lens, ISO 100, 1/6sec F22, mirror lock-up, Polarizer, Tripod.

[Johannes Glännman]

Well done with that. I like the contrast with the two different colors and the line it makes is helping to add a big dept in the picture...

I do think the light is quite hard and to bright. I suppose this was taken in the middle of the day ? I also miss a bit of sharpness in the FG.... I think with a smoother light and more sharpness in the FG it would bring out more details in the flowerfields..

Cheers // Johannes

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi John,
I do like the contrast between the flowers. I'm not so sure of the cut trees although I do realize the difficulty in these type of compositions. A verticle comp without the tree line on the right (moving right a bit and aiming more left) and including the entire central tree may have achieved a strong sense of the color contrast while also improving the comp. Getting a little lower may also have separated the central tree into the sky more. An alternative would be to just focus on the 2 colors. You can see what i mean by scrolling to where the top of the frame just gets past the central tree trunk.......looks pretty cool! i think you have an area well worth exploring and a bit more dramatic lighting would help even more.

[Douglas Bolt]

Very pleasant scene. One that makes me think of a nice bottle of wine with real wine glasses.

This may have changed the feeling you were looking for, but here's another example of adding a Soft Light blend layer (45%) and a little boost in the saturation of the yellows and blues plus a little more sharpening.

[Paul Marcellini]

You got some great suggestions already. I like Roman's comp idea. Here's a try at processing. I selected the brights (option+alt+~) and hit option+j to make that selection a new layer. Set that layer blend mode to multiply. I duplicated it, then repeated the option/alt/~ to select, now even a smaller area of the brightest brights. I then used that selection to make a mask for the duplicated layer. I then duplicated that.

Now the image looks nice and muddy, so we brighten it up and hit it with a touch of contrast. Its a good way to tame harsh light.
Hope that was able to be follwed. I can rewrite it later, but Im running to a party.

Paul

On looking at it the greens got a little out of control but it was a quick edit.

[Robert Amoruso]

Cool Paul,

I started doing almost the same thing yesterday and then my computer rebooted - who know why and never got back until know. Definite improvement in the highlights.

[Gerald Kelberg]

Hi Paul,

I like the way you have intensified the colour and made this so much more powerful. I was hoping someone else would ask you to expand upon your description of what you have done and the thinking behind it - but seems I am the only one who got lost with the duplicated duplication...!

Would you mind running it by one more time?

Thanks,

Gerald