New England Aster

[Anita Bower]

Taken outdoors, a bit after sunset, shade.
Nikon D300, Sigma 105mm macro, f3.5 ("relative"), 1/40, ISO 200, tripod. PP: PS7, basic adjustments, minor crop, vignette.
Colors look more washed out here than in PS. Have others had this issue?

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Anita,
Yep......have had the same issue in PS.....tend to go a bit more vivid because of that and when it hit's the web.....looks OK.
I would have thought when I frst opened it....that the BG would bother me.....I was a bit surprise to find the contrary.....i think it only adds to the image. No surprise to anyone on my love of f32.....but the shallow DOF is perfect here IMO. I love the way it goes from soft to sharp to soft.....with the bud and bloom placed on an excellent diagonal. Even the OOF leaves are working for me! I think this one is great!.....wouldn't change a thing and thanks for keeping this self professed f32 junkie inspired to look for ways to expand to the other side of my lens!

[Anita Bower]

Hey Anita,
Yep......have had the same issue in PS.....tend to go a bit more vivid because of that and when it hit's the web.....looks OK.
I would have thought when I frst opened it....that the BG would bother me.....I was a bit surprise to find the contrary.....i think it only adds to the image. No surprise to anyone on my love of f32.....but the shallow DOF is perfect here IMO. I love the way it goes from soft to sharp to soft.....with the bud and bloom placed on an excellent diagonal. Even the OOF leaves are working for me! I think this one is great!.....wouldn't change a thing and thanks for keeping this self professed f32 junkie inspired to look for ways to expand to the other side of my lens!

Your comment made me chuckle--as moderator of this forum you are doing an excellent job of learning to like shallow dof. Doesn't mean you need to embrace it for yourself. Thanks for the comments. Always appreciated.
OH--I don't seem to have the washed out color problem on my photoblog--so maybe I just need to add some saturation to BPN images.

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Liked the big flower and the smaller bud combo. Lovely mix of soft colours. Artistic image.

[Jay Sheinfield]

Anita,

I'll echo the comments above. Very easy on the eyes............Jay

[Ken Childs]

Like Roman, I thought the BG would be too busy when I saw the thumbnail but I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the post. This is lovely as is but I think I would prefer a bit more of the main subject in focus but a higher aperture probably would have brought out too much detail in the BG.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Anita, lovely work on a lovely flower! I've lost all my Asters in the garden for two consecutive years now, they just don't seem to be able to win the competition with all the weeds :(. It's great how your BG color matches the flower hearts. Great composition as already remarked. Although I'm not an f32 junkie, I would have liked a little more DOF, just enough to get the whole flower center in focus, or maybe even the back petals. And I kind of like the washed out colors! I have the same problem, but with me its the conversion from Adobe RGB to sRGB when saving for web that's the culprit. Sometimes, it also seems to be caused just by the compression of the image.

[Norm Dulak]

A very pleasant image in all regards, Anita. Please keep them coming!:)

[Julie Kenward]

Lovely work, Anita. I'm with Jerry - the center of the main bud is just a little too soft IMO but I don't think it completely ruins the image for me - there's so much else to hold my eye. Might try pulling down the yellows about 5 points in the RAW conversion and then adding back 5 points of luminance - this tends to soften the yellows when they are in "blobs" or "streaks" like these are. Sometimes that few points down in color but up in luminance helps them blend even more with those super beautiful greens.

[Anita Bower]

Thank you all. Good point about the dof--a sharper center would improve image. Will try again. I usually pull down the yellows in RAW, but failed to do so in this case--thanks for the reminder. :)