Topaz Impression Impasto! Well, I did modify the brush size down a bit. But a very fine detail image even with Impasto painting will still leave fair amount of detail. I posted this same Banksia blossom a month ago as it was just finishing it's first blossom, this is the middle of it's secondary blossom. Thanks for looking.
I like the colors, the textures, and the three concentric circles. At first, I wondered about a square format (with added canvas). Then, I wondered about a circular format. Actually, I'd wondered about non-rectangular formats a long time ago, but this image inspired me to try a circular one. That'd be pretty easy if we could post png files, but I tried a Plan B to see if it'd work. The RGB I used for the background was 238, 238, 238. Your experience may vary, etc., etc.
Hmm. The centeredness of the OP didn't work but wasn't sure what to do. Dennis, your idea is interesting, but I think loses depth. Thinking about that and Kerry's recent post (similar centered top to bottom issue) I arrived at a satisfying solution for me.
Explorer blasts the subtle changes, but can see them in Firefox. I darkened and added a vignette to the bg along with the crop. Also some slight toning to the bottom left of the blossom for depth (Luminance blending for a masked Silver Efex layer)... The crop uses the suggestion I had for Kerry's Killdeer moving the subject off center vertically while leaving centered horizontally. Anyway, works for me. What do you think?
I like the OP. Ha! Wouldn't you know that we all have different opinions . In the OP I feel that the bkgd. provides a place for the bright orange center to "live". I like all those subtle lines in the bkgd giving a habitat for the orange center and a place of reference. Those bkgd lines become too distorted in the other versions and not significant enough in themselves to lend support to the orange center. BTW, I like what Impressions did to the orange center with those paint strokes that reveal 3 circles within that center.
Dennis, to create the circle image, just what did you do to delete the rectangle bkgd outside the circle?
Yeah, I remember liking the bg when I started out ;-) Mind you the original is in landscape (ccw to unrotate). And I rotated it to place the dark side on the bottom. Have to look at this some more.
I would think Dennis used circular selection tool & copied to new layer removing the original (after making some canvas adjustments).
Nancy, Michael summarized the method for the circle pretty well. I used the elliptical selection tool to make the circle centered where I wanted it (or at least close to there). A copy followed by a paste put the circle and everything inside it on a new layer. Underneath the new layer, I inserted a new empty layer. After a few tries, I came up with the right color to match the OOTB background and filled the empty layer with that.
I like art that is literally out of the box -- some part of it going onto the mat or even the frame, for example. It was probably about three years ago that I started being active in OOTB. In the worst way, I'd wanted my very first image to be literally out of the box, and it sort of was. But not really. When I was thinking about Michael's image and the possibility of it being a circle, that was more because I wanted to figure out how to do it than because I thought it was a good way to go. Now that I know how to do it, don't be surprised if I post something soon that isn't circular but that literally has something outside the box.
So the important part is getting a bkgd color to match the bkgd here so it visually disappears? Looking forward to OOTB images that do not have rectangular boxes around them!
Well, I can honestly say that I like all three version of this image so you can't lose in my book! The OP is different because of the symmetry, which is not a bad thing to my eye and evokes thoughts of a mandala (and 120 film!). The circle concept that Dennis did is cool because it reminds me of a mini-planet image - I might consider some different color for the bg though. Your final post works well by moving the center of the image away from the center of the frame. I remember being frustrated about 50 years ago because my first "real" camera was a Rolleiflex 2.8F, and the square format kinda made me crazy... Not to mention that the image in the viewfinder was upside-down and backwards. We take so much for granted today with our super whiz-bang equipment!
"It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart, and head." - Henri Cartier Bresson
This is certainly OOTB. In the OP, I find the bg in the upper part more interesting than that of the bottom part. I prefer the crop of the 3rd version. How about doing a 180 rotation before cropping, then cropping and having the more interesting bg at the bottom?
I love the impasto here, and the colours of the bg and the bloom are very nice. Dennis's crop would have taken it down a new road, perhaps for another theme. Must say I am partial to the third crop.
Detail Therapy 2
. In the OP I feel that the bkgd. provides a place for the bright orange center to "live". I like all those subtle lines in the bkgd giving a habitat for the orange center and a place of reference. Those bkgd lines become too distorted in the other versions and not significant enough in themselves to lend support to the orange center. BTW, I like what Impressions did to the orange center with those paint strokes that reveal 3 circles within that center.
Not to mention that the image in the viewfinder was upside-down and backwards. We take so much for granted today with our super whiz-bang equipment!
Michael Gerald-Yamasaki thanked for this post
Originally Posted by Nancy Bell
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