Common Blue Flax

[Jared Gricoskie]

A shot from a few years ago. Common Blue Flax along a roadside. This is one of those shots I merely took for documentaion and later realized that it wasn't to bad artistically. I consider this one of the first shots where I stopped taking pictures and became a photographer.

Cloned out some other flower pods to the right, cropped off 20%, saturated colors a bit

D100, 300mm f6, tripod

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Jared,
Originally I wasn't fond of the square comp.......but that wasn't it...something else...... took it into PS.......adjusted the levels some......hit the BG with Noise ninja. It was just too bright! This stands out even more now with more detail in the flax. Let me know what you think,
Roman

[Robert O'Toole]

Beautiful image, I really like the soft blue against the nice pleasant earth tone BG.

Noise reduction would enhance the image, and some darkening of the 2 lighter blue petals would look nice also.

There are some visible halos on the edge of the flower. I would never run sharpening on the entire image, I would only apply it to the details in the flower.

Robert

[Robert O'Toole]

Hi Jared,
Originally I wasn't fond of the square comp.......but that wasn't it...something else...... took it into PS.......adjusted the levels some......hit the BG with Noise ninja. It was just too bright! This stands out even more now with more detail in the flax. Let me know what you think,
Roman

This is all just a matter of opinion and preference so there is no wrong or right.

NN was a good idea I think, But the repost is a little too dark for me, I really like the origional image's soft tones. Also darkening the image made those halos standout more :(

Robert

[Steve Bein]

a beautiful shot. Well seen and processed. The second version might be good also. With web sized images, I often get the halos also.

[Arthur Morris]

The thumbnail really caught my eye, so yes to artistic. I much prefer the original with the softer colors. You might consider eliminating the blob part of the stem (?) that sticks out from below one of the lower petals...

Robert: do you tilt the screen to see the halos? On the ORIG, that is the only way that I can see them.

[Robert O'Toole]

RE: Halos
I see them without a screen tilt on the orig Artie. They are screaming on the repost.

With Halos, I always strive to avoid them in my processing so I am very sensitive and aware of them.

Robert