Lily of the Valley

[Ravi Hirekatur]

This image was taken in my backyard. This is my first post in Macro section and second overall. I would welcome C&C.
Camera - Canon EOS 30D
Lens - Canon 100/2.8 macro
f8, 0.3 sec, ISO 200
RAW image processed in Adobe ACR and CS4 - color and contrast corrections, and slight sharpening, No NR done, Original image was too saturated, so I tried desaturating it. Does it need more desaturation?
No cropping
Sharpened in dSLR Fractal Sharpen
Thanks

[Dave Leroy]

It is a lovely first posting in macro. I really like the arrangement of the three flowers heads as well as the delicate feel to the photo. The whites look fine to me with all the green around, but it will be interesting to see what the others have to say on that. I would clone out the bit of leaf in llc as well as soften the apparent hard edge of the green triangle extending up from below the bottom flower.

Looking forward to more.

[Dennis Bishop]

There's a lot I like about this, Ravi. Three is always a good number, and I agree with Dave about their arrangement, which takes the eye clockwise around the image. The curvature of the stems reinforces that. As does the reduction in white of the flowers. The out-of-focus background is just right to me -- including the level of saturation. Very nice.

[Ken Childs]

Welcome to macro, Ravi! This is a great first post! The 3 flowers make a good comp and the saturation looks fine to me. I think a bit more canvas on the left could help...right now it looks too tight on that side. The transition between the lighter and darker greens in the lower half of the image is giving me problems....it almost looks like something was cloned out there. I know you didn't do that but it might be worthwhile to try to smooth out that transition. Try using a soft brush at about 20% opacity, grab some of the darker green and brush over that transition area. Overall this is nicely done and I'm certainly looking forward to your future posts. :S3:

[Ravi Hirekatur]

Thanks Leroy, Dennis and Ken for your comments. The hard transition below the bottom flower was caused by two leaves in front of the camera. There was no cloning involved in the original post. I did some rework on the image and posting it again. I didn't know how to use the brush, so I used the clone tool to soften up the hard edges in the transition area Ken that ken mentioned. adding extra canvas to the left of the image was a problem as the color density along the L edge is not the same throughout. I will try to learn how to do that.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Ravi and welcome to the Macro forum. Like the others, I really like the arrangement of the three flowers. This is an instance where a relatively shallow DOF works quite well. The saturation looks fine to me. I also like the even light and the background - especially in the repost. This is very well done and I look forward to seeing more of your work!

[Dennis Bishop]

Thanks Leroy, Dennis and Ken for your comments. The hard transition below the bottom flower was caused by two leaves in front of the camera. There was no cloning involved in the original post. I did some rework on the image and posting it again. I didn't know how to use the brush, so I used the clone tool to soften up the hard edges in the transition area Ken that ken mentioned. adding extra canvas to the left of the image was a problem as the color density along the L edge is not the same throughout. I will try to learn how to do that.

Ravi, I kind of like the lines from those leaves, but that's obviously a personal preference thing. This reply is really about adding extra canvas. I recently found something in the Tutorial and Educational Resources forum that was posted by Richard Peters in 2009. It gives a link to a good tutorial (by him) on adding canvas. Here's the link http://www.richardpeters.co.uk/blog/2009/07/24/easy-canvas-extension/

I'd add a couple things to what he says, though. The first will make more sense after you look at the tutorial. Not only is the color density changing along the edge, as you pointed out, but it's also changing across the image. Instead of just making a selection and dragging it to meet the left edge in your case, I'd flip it horizontally. That will make the same colors butt up against each other. Try it both ways on your image, and you'll see what I mean.

The other thing you can do -- although it would be more important in the original post, where the colors are also changing diagonally because of the leaves in the bottom -- is to use the smudge tool set to zero hardness and low strength (maybe 10, or less) and the Finger Painting box checked. Adjust to the appropriate diameter and drag the colors over the extended canvas in the direction they were going in the original canvas. You'll want to change the foreground color to that at the point where you're going to start the smudging. This works really well with a soft background but not, of course, with one that's in focus.

[Ravi Hirekatur]

Thanks Dennis for the tips. I followed the instructions in the link. It worked very well to extend the canvas. I didn't have to flip it horizontally as the colors matched well. I will work on it again with other techniques you mentioned so I could learn. Ken, I finally used the soft brush @ 30% opacity to soften the hard edges. I like the resulting image better than the first repost. Here is the repost of the original image. Thanks both of you for teaching me some new techniques and how to clean up an image. I somehow get intimidated by the photoshop, as every little trick seems to be a complicated process, until I spend some time on it.

[Dennis Bishop]

Super job on the added canvas, Ravi.

Intimidating, complicated ... Photoshop? Yes it is, but keep at it. We've all been there.

[Julie Kenward]

And the more you learn the more you'll want to learn because Photoshop done correctly can make your best images into something you've always dreamed of. Keep at it, Ravi...this is an excellent start!

[Ravi Hirekatur]

Thanks Dennis and Julie for your encouraging words. I am beginning to learn things that make an image look better.

[Ken Childs]

Ravi, some of the things I do in Photoshop seem quick and easy and require very little thought but whenever I try to type out the instructions for someone else, I realize how they can seem intimidating. :S3: