Theme: Pom-Pom

[Ed Vatza]

Pomegranate, what else?

Canon 50D; Sigma 150mm Macro lens; tripod-mounted.

Some initial fine tuning in Lightroom followed by Topaz Adjust, Topaz Detail, Topaz Simplify where I started with the oil painting preset and worked from there.

[Dave Phillips]

can you explain your pp intent going from Adjust to Detail to Simplify.
What was your goal with each filter?

[Ed Vatza]

can you explain your pp intent going from Adjust to Detail to Simplify.
What was your goal with each filter?

Not sure if this will answer your question completely but here goes.

First off, I knew where I wanted to end up even before I made the image. When I bought the pom this morning, I was thinking about the composition and ultimately creating a digital painting in Topaz Simplify. The only detour was that I was envisioning something more watercolor-like and in the final analysis, I found that I preferred the oil-painting look better.

Now for Adjust. I have come to use Adjust pretty much as part of my "normal" workflow. I will start in Lightroom where I will make adjustments to exposure (highlights) and blacks (shadows) as I see fit. I will also often make adjustments to clarity and vibrance while in Lightroom. If I feel the need to add or subtract saturation, I will do it there as well. Then I import the image into Photoshop. These days, the first thing I do in CS4 is go into Topaz Adjust and make any "final tweaks" that I think are necessary - usually they are very minor exposure tweaks unless I am going for some kind of special effect which I wasn't in this case.

I could also tweak detail in Adjust but there is more control over those details in Topaz Detail. So I go there instead of make the adjustments in Adjust. At this point I still have what I would consider a "normal" processed image, in this case of a cut pom.

But as I said, I knew from the get go that I wanted a painterly effect. So I then moved the image into Simplify where I explored several different presets to get a feel for what the options were. I was thinking watercolor but ended up liking the oil painting preset better so I chose that as my starting point, made adjustments from there and voila!

Answer your question???

[Dave Phillips]

Not sure if this will answer your question completely but here goes.

....................................Answer your question???

yessir, thank you

[denise ippolito]

Ed, I like the comp. and the effect you ended up with is nice. If it were mine I might tone down a few of the dark spots on the back half. Very neat!!

[Harshad Barve]

lovely compo and great PP job
TFS

[Dave Mills]

Hi Ed, I think you accomplished what you set out to do. Nice, simple comp showing an unusual subject...

[Cheryl Slechta]

Ed, nice composition and treatment. I can see it hanging in a gallery in NYC:)