Photography

Photo Editing ABFriday

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI chose to focus on the face of the statue with the flowers as a secondary focus. I decided not to crop or use a vignette because I didn’t want to crowd the subject.  All editing was done in Sagelight.
I used a gaussian blur on the surrounding area,
adjusted the lighting using the power curve to highlight the face more,
brought up the colour in the flowers,
tweaked the contrast and
added a softened amber burn for warmth.
There was a spot of light on the right so I used a gradient vignette just on that corner to bring it down.  The chair on the left had become quite red, albeit blurred but it was competing for attention – I tried a gradient vignette to adjust it but didn’t like it so instead used a mask to bring the chroma down.

This is the before image
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAStacy’s ABFriday One Photo Focus over at Visual Venturing

32 thoughts on “Photo Editing ABFriday”

  1. Lynne – I was really impressed with what you did! That gaussian blur did a great job of focusing my eye on the cherub. I did that with a crop, but I think the blur worked a little better. I can see though where that chair gave you fits. That really did red up, didn’t it?

    I agree with your earlier comment that the flowers turned out to not be secondary, but that the picture worked very well with them. I think you were one of the few where the flowers weren’t secondary! And again, it looks good.

    Thanks for describing your process! It’s very different than mine, which is why I enjoyed reading it.

    If you come by my blog, I show how I used radial filters to lighten and darken some spots, including the upper arm of the cherub. It might give you some ideas if you want to change something like that on another edit.

    Nancy

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  2. You’re so right that the “difficult” part of this image is the background, Lynne. It was interesting to see that most chose to crop, but you went your own direction and blurred the whole background and that definitely works. I do love the warm glow of the flowers and how you added light to the angel, though my eye is drawn first to the brighter light on the shoulder. I might be inclined to balance the brightness of the two 🙂 Thanks for being part ABF/1PF!

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  4. I love what you did with this. My only problem, if you can call it that, is you say you wanted the flowers as the secondary focus and, because of the strong color saturation, I do not find them secondary at all. The face and the flowers seem equal in importance but the shot still works for me. I love it!

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    1. Taking another look I realize of course, you are right Emilio. Occupying more space as they do also draws more attention. So I didn’t meet my goal, but glad you like it anyway 😉 And I appreciate your comment. I like to know whether viewers think I achieved what I set out to do.

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      1. Thanks, Lynne. Me, too. Everyone seems to be afraid to say anything negative but how are we (I’m really talking about me) supposed to get better if we don’t accept the good with the bad. I never want to come off as a know it all because I definitely am not. I am sill a beginner and still learning! So I’m glad I did not offend.

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        2. Emilio – I think the difference is in being critical to show off how much you know versus giving constructive feedback that helps the artist improve. Having said that, I have the same concerns each time I leave some feedback. Overall, everyone’s been positive about it, but you never know who’s going to choose to get offended. You didn’t see Stacy’s later comment here, but Lynne made a very nice comment about how you helped her with some suggestions so certainly she appreciated that you took a few minutes to analyze her picture. (sorry Lynne, to hijack this)

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  6. Hi, Lynne: It is interesting how many of us working with Loré’s image had similar objectives, but used quite different methods of getting there. Some of us cropped, others employed a vignette, while you used a gaussian blur to bring attention to the central subject. The softness plus the strong warmth produced an excellent image.

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  9. Really nice use of selective focussing, I think we all struggled with dealing with the untidy background so its interesting to see how everyone dealt with it in different ways 🙂

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