For this image I wanted to practice creating dramatic lighting in postprocessing. In the original image (in comments below), the light actually came more from behind and to the left, so essentially the reverse of the image I’m posting here. I made use of three gradient filters to create the lighting effect, and tried to use luminance masking to make it look more natural. Also made the greens more blue, and less saturated. Finally, I pushed some magenta into the shadows.
Specific Feedback Requested
Anything, but in particular (in no particular order):
- Does it look unnatural / too stylized?
- Technical feedback on the execution in post
- Composition
- How annoying is the bee’s butt poking out of the petal?
- Colors
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
1/320s
f/5.6
ISO 125
200mm
You have created dramatic lighting but I’m not sure I see a change in its direction. I like the toning down of the grass and the use of the gradients but I’m not sure it doesn’t feel like its gone too far.
I’m convinced that these poppies exist in order to drive photographers (or at least THIS one) mad trying to represent their amazing colors, and the most difficulty arises when they are shot in sunlight. I had a look at the white balance in your original and feel an initial correction to it might put you on a better footing for the subsequent work.
In the Cmnera RAW filter I lowered the Temp, brought down Highlights and lightened Shadows, and moved the reds toward orange. Crude work on a JPEG but you can see the idea. (It did not have an embedded profile but your final version was in sRGB so I assigned that. The missing profile will cause some viewers to see the colors incorrectly.) What do you think?
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@Diane_Miller thank you for the helpful feedback! I definitely see what you mean that maybe the postprocessing went too far.
Thanks for providing the edited image! To my eye, the resulting image looks a bit flat, but maybe it comes down to personal taste. Regarding the temp - this was actually shot at golden hour, so I think the warmer temp may be a better representation of what it actually looked like in that moment. What do you think? I do like the bluer greens that it brought out and can see why you moved the reds more to orange. I like the more natural look of it!
Regarding the color profile, how did you determine the original export doesn’t have an embedded color profile? When I look at the files on my computer (macOS in Finder), the profile is listed as sRGB IEC61966-2.1. But obviously I would like to know how to avoid any possible inconsistencies when others view my images. I use LrC and when I export to JPG I always have File Settings > Color Space set to sRGB. Is there anything else I can/should do?
Thanks again for the feedback!
My image is just a suggested better starting point – which should be done better in the raw converter.
If you download your image from this site and open it in PS you should see a warning of a missing profile. Check your Edit > Color settings. The damn things default to the lowest common denominator every time there is an update – you should have the 3 checkboxes checked for profile warnings, and have Adobe RGB checked for your workspace unless you know the limitations of ProPhoto RGB, or are happy with the ease of sRGB.
The profile needs to be embedded when you save an sRGB JPEG. There will (should) be a little checkbox for it, or if you export from LR it is automatically embedded.
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Thanks! It’s very odd that the color profile wasn’t embedded for you, because I definitely exported from LrC with sRGB selected.
