flower

[smusesuse]

Hey everyone, this is my first try with affinity. Well, kind of - I used the beta version of the software once before. Anyway, I hope you like my flower.

Tips and comments are most appreciated.

[armando_m]

I like the converging lines towards the center of the flower and a very nice red

the highlights seems to have lost almost all the details, did you tried other versions with some more depth of field ?

nice composition !

[Andrea B.]

I haven't had a chance yet to look at my recently downloaded Affinity, but hope to be able to soon. Let us know how you like it!!

I also like the diagonal lines of this composition.
There is lots to recover in the highlights where detail has been lost.
I'm not yet sure how Affinity handles highlight recovery or I would suggest something.

I would also maybe crop in for added focus on the important lines in the photo.

Here is a crop showing before & after highlight recovery and application of a bit of high-pass overlay sharpening to bring out the details. Given that the sharpening was applied to a crop from a jpg, it shows some artifacts which would not be there if applied to the original raw photo at full size.

I'm not sure if the green glow along the edge of the pollen is due to chromatic aberration or what?
 



 

[smusesuse]

Thank you, Armando and Andrea!

the highlights seems to have lost almost all the details, did you tried other versions with some more depth of field ?

Unfortunately, I did not. With macro, so far, I can concentrate on little other than getting things in focus...

I haven't had a chance yet to look at my recently downloaded Affinity, but hope to be able to soon. Let us know how you like it!!

I also like the diagonal lines of this composition.
There is lots to recover in the highlights where detail has been lost.
I'm not yet sure how Affinity handles highlight recovery or I would suggest something.

I would also maybe crop in for added focus on the important lines in the photo.

Yup, I see that the blown out highlights are the major flaw here. I tried to recover that but I didn't zoom in enough for that so "to the naked eye" it didn't seem that I gained much. Thanks for your before and after, quite the difference.

In general I can't say much about affinity yet, since I'm absolutely new to it (and graphics software in general). So far, I'm sitting in front of my mac and staring at all the buttons and options I don't understand.

Thank you both for taking the time and comment!!

[Frank Fremerey]

I like it. The dark red makes the yellow shine. Very nice.

[Andrea B.]

Susanne - just load a photo (well a duplicate of some photo) into Affinity and start playing !!
Try everything to see what it does. You'll soon know your way around. 

I'm in transit now from Maine to New Jersey, but I'll soon be home and start checking out Affinity.

[Gary]

Aaaahhh .... Cardinal and Gold, my school's colors. The sweeping red curves and the ballistic projectile emerging from the center creates a lot of drama for a 'mere' flower picture. Well done. I like what Andrea did to the anther.

[smusesuse]

Thank you Frank, Andrea, and Gary for your lovely comments.

Susanne - just load a photo (well a duplicate of some photo) into Affinity and start playing !!
Try everything to see what it does. You'll soon know your way around. 

Yes, that's kind of my approach so far.

[rosko]

the highlights seems to have lost almost all the details, did you tried other versions with some more depth of field ?

Hi Susanne !

# I agree with Armando about this burned area, which are very well solved thanks AndeaB' suggestion. (she's a digital processing wizard ! )

This is very important as the anther is the main subject (being sharp and brighter).

# You can improve the composition placing this main subject in a special area of the image : if you divide the frame with 4 lines (2 vertical lines and 2 horizontal lines), in order to obtain 9 equal parts, and 4 crossing points.

Each point is a important point, aesthetically speaking.

It is not a absolute rule. (rules are made to be broken)...But sometimes, they help.

Image below to illustrate what I mean :

That said, you image is not bad at all.

[smusesuse]

Thank you for your comment, rosko! And thank you for your explanation about those lines and points.
Actually, this is not news to me - I learned about the rule of thirds before. I should try to keep this more in mind when shooting.
The only thing that would bother me in this case is that if I cropped the picture like suggested, I would lose the sharp bit of the petal (which does add to the picture imho).

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Think always in terms of how to break rules. But notice this assumes you already are familiar with these enigmatic 'rules'.

[rosko]

The only thing that would bother me in this case is that if I cropped the picture like suggested, I would lose the sharp bit of the petal (which does add to the picture imho).

This is exactly what I've noticed once my comment posted. These sharp lines are a plus in your original compo, I agree.

The ''rule'' (I don't really like this word...) suggested in my comment applies to rather while shooting.

[Bernard Delley]

well do not take the rule in a too narrow minded sense!
 I seem to remember, Bruce Barnbaum  in his book 'The Art of Photography' has a hilarious rant against it.
Goes something like this: "Artists often like to place important objects in their painting off center. Now, when a statistics professor with no understanding of art did statistics o a collection of artworks, he found that the average position was off center 1/3 along a diagonal."
--- We do not really intend to produce images which are 'average' !

For an exercise I cropped your image. I kept the blurry left edge of the petals just in the image. I cropped from above,  keeping enough for the brighter streaks closed by a darker  area. To avoid leading out if the image. I also cropped off to the right to remove a distracting bright green point in the lower right corner. I think the vertical off-center position of the pollen now interacts image wise with the sharp petal lines pointing back to it.

[smusesuse]

Thanks again for your most helpful comments!

Think always in terms of how to break rules. But notice this assumes you already are familiar with these enigmatic 'rules'.

That does make quite a lot of sense to me.

The ''rule'' (I don't really like this word...) suggested in my comment applies to rather while shooting.

I agree, rosko. Like I said, I should try to keep that more in mind when shooting. I don't always have a clear image of composition in my head when I take a picture.

For an exercise I cropped your image. I kept the blurry left edge of the petals just in the image. I cropped from above,  keeping enough for the brighter streaks closed by a darker  area. To avoid leading out if the image. I also cropped off to the right to remove a distracting bright green point in the lower right corner. I think the vertical off-center position of the pollen now interacts image wise with the sharp petal lines pointing back to it.

Thank you, Bernard, for taking the time. I like your edit of the picture a lot! And thank you also for explaining the various steps of your edit, that is really helpful.