Summer Flower

[Erik Anderson]

Just found this in the garden. Olympus E-1, 50mm, f4, 1/30, ISO 100, .0EV

[Julie Kenward]

Eric, you've got a lovely zinnia here but I feel the lighting is a little on the dark side. Fill flash probably would have helped here or a correction in exposure but since it is after-the-fact, I tried a few things with the image.

I did a levels adjustment to bring up the dark tones of the BG and then masked off the zinnia so it retained it's deep magenta color. I also converted it to a screen blend mode which brought the BG up even more (again, masking off the flower.) I selected the flower, inverted the selection (so it only grabbed the BG) and did a slight gaussian blur (about 7 pixels) to help diffuse it even more. I also took a bit off the right side to finish centering it in the frame.

Now, this doesn't make your image wrong and mine right by any means and I do believe a dark BG can be nice for dramatic effect but I think this one feels softer with a lighter BG. Next time, try a few different exposures and see what you think...

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Erik,
Actually....I tend to prefer the darker BG's.....but that is a personal taste call. I do like the way you eliminated any distractions....You may want to try opening up the center a bit though...just to add another layer of dimension.