Tulip

[massimomossi]

Not from my yard, alas. Still way too cold here in S. Indiana.

Olympus SP-570UZ, 9.77mm zoom, super-macro setting. ISO 64, f/8, 1/5 sec. Natural light. Adjustments to exposure (+.5), clarity, vibrancy, lightness, and blacks in PSE RAW. Sharpened in PSE7. Full frame. Manfrotto tripod with pistol-grip head.

Thanks for looking, and comments welcome, as always.

Massimo

[Richard Lovison]

I like the interplay between the yellow and red flowers with the overlapping curves. What spoils it for me is the small cavity at the bottom leading to the stem as it draws my eye away from the main attraction.

[Bruce Murden]

Hi! I really like the colors and your tweaks to contrast here, and the general composition. The curves, lines, and darker regions are striking, and there is both good balance and good dynamic action in the comp.

I'm with Richard that the dark triangle seems out of place with the rest of the red&yellow composition. Also, the small amount of yellow or orange on the top right portion of the red tullip distracts me as the only bright spot in the red. But these are minor critiques for some ideal world improvement. Overall, really nice image.

[Julie Kenward]

Massimo, I did a slightly different crop, cutting out the triangle at the bottom. I also lightened the edge of the petal on the right side where the shadow makes it appear almost dirty.

The thing about this image is that when you open it in levels you can see that you have blown both ends of the histogram - that is why much of the red petal has almost no real detail to it in the upper right area. There are also some areas of the yellow that are the same way. It's very easy to confuse saturation with light but in this case the saturation is at the cost of the detail.

Technically, it's not the best image; however, from first glance I really liked it and still do. It's a beautiful abstract but it would have been even better if there had been detail all the way throughout the image. Next time check your histogram and make sure there are no spikes at either end and your should have yourself an excellent image. You certainly have a good eye - you just need to better understand exposure and digital data.

[massimomossi]

Thank you all for your comments--really sharpened the way I look at this picture. It really takes fresh eyes to point out what one should have seen all along: I was hanging on to the bottom triangle because there were details on the petals left and right that I liked. Jules' repost showed me that I can let go of them.

I took the picture back to RAW and reset it to default values, then started again. This time I only worked with the aperture (+1 stop), and laid off the saturation, vibrancy, and contrasts; I also sharpened details in RAW, rather than in PSE7. Cropped around the edges, too: a sliver off the top, and more significant sections at bottom and right. In PSE I also brightened somewhat the yellow edge at center, to give it more punch.

This, of course, is still IN PROGRESS.

But Jules' comments, in particular, got me to study the histograms more carefully and avoid some of the earlier pitfalls--I'll be reviewing histograms in some of my older pictures, too, now that I am more aware of them. I learn more with each post, and am very grateful for all input.

As always, comments are welcome!