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Can anyone comment on my Big Buttress Root?

Composition and Post Processing comments welcome.

Some things I can note is the blown highlights. Also the pic seems a little busy...do you agree?

Anything else?



Thanks

Paul

and another...

G'day NU,
The first is a little busy for me, as they are I prefer the second shot as it seems to demand more attention from the viewer on the stumps (well it does for me anyway ) I keep looking at the blue marks (?) on the stump in the first one too...

I think maybe if you burned, or applied some gentle darkening curves or maybe a very slight blurring to the background(s) that may help to centre the viewers focus on your subjects? The subjects seem to compete with all the greenery in the background...

I did a quick and dirty layer mask and lens blur (Loving my new graphics tablet!!).

Very dirty around the edges... but just a sample to see what you think:



Or something a little different

Ahhhh, the first of the two reposted images really grabs me, the stumps are almost jumping out at me Wow, can't help but only see the stumps now...

The second just seems, ummm, dunno, maybe if the background was desat'ed but just a little bit rather than B&W maybe?

PP is fun and it's good to toss around ideas huh... The lens blur is a really cool filter eh? When you apply the mask, use a gradient to paint the mask then (to get a nice smooth transition), blur it a smidge and you can really get a good DOF effect... It's cool...

How do I use a gradient to paint the mask? Currently I just use the paintbrush tool

The second of the reposted images was just the background desaturated. Just something I thought I'd try in 10 secs or less

NikonUser wrote:How do I use a gradient to paint the mask? Currently I just use the paintbrush tool...

Just make a selection of what you want to apply the filter to (any type of filter) and use that selection within the mask to apply the gradient to...

Photoshop is so powerful there's a gazillion ways to skin a cat (ooops, sorry cat people), this is just one way...
Duplicate your original background layer, then make your selection (of what you want to apply the filter to) using the duplicated layer (doing this on the duplicated layer means you can see what you're selecting and the effect is only on that layer so you can play with the opacity of the filtered layer, all without affecting the original), then apply a mask to that dupicated layer (by clicking the little "camera" icon at the bottom of the layers pallette), select the mask itself (ie: click on the little white mask window next to the layer) and then apply the gradient tool which will be restricted by the selection. The start and end of the gradient is determined by the start and end point of the line you use to direct the gradient

You can then add additional blurring to the result if you wish to smooth more... Also, if you only want to see the mask itself rather than the image (say if you want to manually paint it), just alt-click on the mask window itself in the layers pallette. Filters only apply to white areas of a mask... In the mask you can always re-paint the white and black areas with a paintbrush to determine/change where the mask takes effect, you can always change it later...

This is typed quickly I hope I've got this right and explained it OK

Big Roots massive roots
\Jethro