Flaming Red

[Christopher Miller]

Found these leaves early one morning last fall. I pushed the BG to black to better set off the backlit leaves. I also converted this to B&W.
Any C&C are welcome!

Olympus SP-550 UZ
f4.5 @ 1/250, ISO 100, -0.3 EV
Program mode, spot metering, cloudy WB, natural light
Processed in PS CS2; slight crop, curves adjustment, saturation increase, cloned out a few light spots on the BG, and added a little canvas to the right

[Christopher Miller]

Here's the B&W version. Converted using channel mixer and curves adjustment to increase contrast.

[Stefan Minnig]

Chris,

I like both versions. The color version a tad more. I think it was smart darkening the BG a bit. It really punches out the leaves. Nice work.

[Alfred Forns]

Love the color version and the B&W could work tweaking the contrast !!!

Sweet image !!! Cropping wise would cut at the last third of the full leaf so it looks deliberate Only way to make it better would be having more leafs for a longer ratio !!! Like it a lot !!!

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Like the first post (color) The red against the black background makes it stand out. Also like the shadows on the leaves.
Congrats, very original Chris.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Chris - like the first one with the red leaves contrasting against the black BG.

Nice

[Cheryl Flory]

Christopher, a very striking image. What do you mean by "pushed the bg to black"?

[Christopher Miller]

Thanks everyone for your comments!

Alfred, Thanks for the cropping suggestion. I wasn't sure where to crop on that side. Here is the color version recropped and it looks much better!

Cheryl, What I mean is that I exposed for the leaves using spot metering knowing that that would underexpose the BG creating a black BG.

[Gus Cobos]

I like your repost on the color version the best Christopher...:cool: