First real PS work - bouquet

[digital faerie]

ok, so there were a lot of firsts regarding this shoot. first time for RAW, first time using back lighting, first time I've done crazy PS work like this. I'm so anal and it's still not perfect but oh well. I've calibrated my monitor in order to help insure my monitor will reflect what gets printed but we'll see.

Here is the original:

http://digitalfaerie.smugmug.com/photos/17035241-L.jpg

and here it is post-PS.....so how'd I do? :dunno

http://digitalfaerie.smugmug.com/photos/17035249-L.jpg

and the 3rd post Tristan's excellent suggestion:

http://digitalfaerie.smugmug.com/photos/17041064-L.jpg

[GREAPER]

I like it.

Very nice.

How did you do it?

[digital faerie]

I like it.

Very nice.

How did you do it?
shew, lemme count the layers......ok, so first thing was adjusting curves for green, and red and a little blue in only part of the spectrum. I created another layer for color adjustment and played with that. then I used the magic wand to select the background to as close as possible to the flowers and created a layer from that. I applied gaussian blur to that layer and then merged everything down. I also cloned and "band-aided" the bottom and the blown-out section and let the gaussian blur layer take care of the roughness from that. I worked on this forever, but I'm sure there was probably a better, easier way, but I'm still pleased overall and I guess that counts for somethin'!

[TristanP]

It's a good start. A couple comments: The bright upper portion is still a bit distracting and the flowers themselves need some more light on them. You did pretty well with the lower portion of the background. When lighting a background, it helps to have the light illuminate it evenly so you don't get those hot spots. It harder than it looks, eh? What version of PS did you use? If it's CS, there's the Shadows and Highlights tool which might help some with the exposure of the flowers in front.

[digital faerie]

It's a good start. A couple comments: The bright upper portion is still a bit distracting and the flowers themselves need some more light on them. You did pretty well with the lower portion of the background. When lighting a background, it helps to have the light illuminate it evenly so you don't get those hot spots. It harder than it looks, eh? What version of PS did you use? If it's CS, there's the Shadows and Highlights tool which might help some with the exposure of the flowers in front.
posted the 3rd.....how's that? good suggestions! :thumb