Dead Leaves #3

Still working on dead leaves! :) I took this close to a stream back in the woods, so these leaves were all wet and muddy. I left the BG leaves a little dark to better set off the main leaf. Do you think it's too dark? Any C&C are welcome!

Olympus SP-550 UZ
f4.5 @ 1/6, ISO 400, -1.0 EV
Aperture priority mode, pattern metering
Processed in PS CS2; slight crop, curves adjustments, shadow/highlight, channel mixer, hue/saturation layer, a little noise reduction, darkened BG a little with color fill layer, cloned out various debris in BG, and added a vignette to darken the image edges

Christopher, I like this alot and it doesn't appear too dark on my monitor. I'm sure you could lighten it if you wanted,but I like it as presented. I might take a small slice off the top if it were mine, but not alot. I think where the stem meets the leaf it needs a round of sharpening. Well done.

Hi Christopher. Agree with Denise's comments. Big improvement! I'll also add that I like that the leaf is on a slight diagonal.

I don't find the background too dark, Christopher. The staring leave though could use a bit more sharpening.

Thanks everyone. Appreciate the comments and suggestions!

I would crop tighter Christopher, of course that being subjective. I like the tonalities, not dark to me at all. Great mood.

Thanks for commenting, Akos. Personally I like it with more room, but as you say it's subjective. Nothing wrong with either comp :)!

loving this one, christopher!!! this is perfect. the nice looking leafs contrast well with the other decomposing material. well seen. reminds me of a mike moats.

Now I think you're really hitting your stride with these, Christopher. You really found a way to make this one pop and did it still leaving plenty of detail to hold the viewer's eye. Lovely work!