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We have several varieties of native oak on our property, and this one has lovely furry magenta baby leaves. I found a bunch I could isolate against a halfway pleasing BG and decided to see what I could do with them. Settled on Nik CEP's Glamour Glow, with the Highlights pulled up and the Shadows all the way down.
Diane,
Greetings. I like the baby leaves and the glow treatment. I particularly like the little green tips. The bg is less than optimal, particularly the branch that runs in the bg of the leaves, perhaps if the diagonal in the upper right were removed and the lighter region of the same branch on the left toned down? Thanks for posting.
Cheers,
-Michael-
Very pretty colours Dianne, I love the glow and the thought of Spring. As you noted, a less than ideal BG, but I think if you removed the stem in the URC it would be improved.
Thanks! It's tricky to tone down that entire stem, but I could do more with the UR corner. Good idea -- thanks! Maybe I could isolate the leaves with Topaz ReMask, but it may be easier to shoot it again with a slightly different camera position. I'll give masking a try when I have time -- could be interesting.
I've shot these leaves for three days in a row now -- I'll be posting some straight ones in Macro and will see what I can come up with here as well.
The oak leaves are very appealing, and they need to have some underpinnings and interest in the background, so the branches/twigs are important. The branches do cause a bit of a distraction, but I think that's not as important as the fact that they lead the eye out of the frame. I copied the leaves and pasted them onto a separate layer. Then, I applied a very strong field blur to a copy of the posted image. Finally, I applied a radial gradient mask to the blurred layer, making sure it didn't extend to the left and right sides. Just a thought . . .
Attachment 150404
That's an improvement -- it wasn't easy to find good leaves with a good BG. I sometimes blur the edges of an image but didn't think about it here. Thanks for the suggestion!
I try to formulate my comments before reading those of the other participants. In this case, my comments would have mirrored Michael's. I agree, Dennis's redo is an improvement. This might be worth a reshoot.
