Last of season waterlilies

[Linda Dulak]

At the end of October we visited Longwood gardens. The water lily gardens were still open. the day was overcast so the light was not too strong in the middle of the day. This water lily had 3 blooms that were close together and I thought made for a nice presentation. A few stray seeds from surrounding trees were cloned out of the water. Otherwise it was cropped, PP in CS5 with adjustments in curves and levels (after converting to sGB to eliminate blocking of the reds) and a small amount of sharpening.

Nikon D-300, Nikkor 28-300 mm @122, 1/60 sec, ISO 400, R-1 Nikon twin strobes

Comments welcome.

Linda

[Dan Brown]

Nice comp and sharpness Linda, although a little tight for my taste. The lights might be a bit hot and overall a bit contrasty but I am on my laptop in bad light myself! I see some specular highlights from the flashes that you could removed.

[Ken Childs]

Hey Linda, it's nice to see these late season flowers. After a few hard freezes in my area, there aren't many colorful flowers left to enjoy. I like the comp but agree with Dan that the colors look a bit too hot so I'd try desaturating everything and then adding some contrast. There's a white stripe across the top but since I think you should crop a fair amount off the top, it really doesn't matter. If it were mine I'd crop down to about the center of that top middle leaf. There are some white flash highlights and quite a few blemishes on the leaves that should be cloned away and I'd try using a soft brush at about 25% opacity to paint over some of the brighter areas of the leaves. There's a leaf above the center flower that I think should be removed. It's a nice image that could easily go up a few notches with some editing tweaks.

After typing the above I decided to practice what I preached so I reworked the image. In addition to what's listed above, I sharpened it a bit more. Please let me know what you think. :)

[Linda Dulak]

Thanks Ken, that looks much better. I have to practice my photoshop skills a bit more. I, too, looked at that leaf but decided it was too difficult for me to remove. I actually like the tighter crop.

Linda

[Anita Bower]

Lovely water lilies. I like the composition--three is always a good number.The colors are beautiful. It is not too tight for me. I think Ken addressed the issues I would raise. I know what you mean about not being up to cloning out something like a leaf. It takes practice, and I'm not so good at it either. In my experience, photoshop skills improve bit by bit with practice. Thanks for sharing.

[Jay Sheinfield]

This repost looks great. wonderful comp.."three's a crowd". the grouping of flowers is very appealing!
great find...........the PS skills will improve over time.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Linda. Lovely, colorful flowers! I think Ken nailed the critique and I like what he did with the repost - a definite improvement, in my view. :) To my eye, the flowers look a little oversharpened in the repost, but this is something you have control over and can adjust to your personal taste. Having the full-res file to work with will be helpful in this regard. Keep them coming.

[Linda Dulak]

Thanks everyone. I'll work on the PS skills and see if I can take it up that little notch.

Linda

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Linda,
Just returned from taveling.....excellent advice above and Ken's repost works for me....even the tightness! You almost always have to remove flash highlights from the twins.....I find blowing the iage up to 400% and then working on them with a small clone or patch tool.....is the easiest way to go. Nice job composing this and well done overall.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Linda, very nice comp and the repost made a big improvement by getting rid of all the white specks.