I took this, and there is something about it... I can't put my finger on it.. I just don't like it. I've gotten a couple of suggestions on what I could have done but the more the merrier! Critique please?
Maybe you could try an angle crop and take out the extra leaf in the back section. It might highlight the draw to the center where the veins meet. You could carefully keep the notch on the stem......
Foreground blur is often distracting and very hard to find the right image where it fits. At least as I have found. For this macro-like shot, focus stacking is probably the only way to get it all in focus, and that is really a pain to shoot. The lack of blacks or darky vibrant tones to match the whites sort of washes out the color I think? You did choose a very tough macro assignment here.
I actually like the white stripe, and feel the foreground blur could work here... however what I am finding distracting is the brown bokeh at the bottom right corner. Try cropping that out (or cloning it if you want to preserve the image dimensions) and see how it looks?
I would also give the whole image a bit more strength/contrast (used judiciously of course) to lift the faded colours.
Ooh you should totally try this in black and white, with the contrast upped a bit - that would remove the distracting coloured bokeh, and I think the image is strong enough composition-wise to handle it :)
@ozziehoffy - my point is though that it is distracting to the 99.99999% of people that would just want to enjoy your pics, adds nothing to your legal rights, and is no more than a passing inconvenience to anyone that decides to remove it and use the pic.
Takes what? 30 seconds? to remove a watermark - this amateur version was done on my phone - a PC would give even better results. (I have defaced it to prevent re-use)
@welcometocarolworld Thanks so much I will try that! @frankhymus@jantan thank you, it was my first macro shot ever.. and I did choose a very difficult one, didn't realize it though until it was on my computer and I wasn't happy at all with it. @pocketmouse@ozziehoffy Thank you! I will try that also! And B&W... never thought of that! I will totally do that! Clever clever! @styru Yes, I am not the greatest fan of watermarks, but I have had my work stolen a lot -by mainly my friends!- so I have been trying to find a good one for the past year, and even if I don't like it I will put it up because I'm kinda paranoid about getting it stolen again. But I have found a more subtle and short one I like.. just my initials.
You can also post in lower resolution for the 365 purposes. There is always a way to "share", but then someone can't reproduce it in a good printed format for general commercial gain. @picturegirl_92
@welcometocarolworld I save all web ones at 72dpi and 800 on the long edge... especially after the whole saga (which you'd remember?). However, I still watermark too. Also for the purpose of if someone doesn't link it back to my page or share directly from my page, a person could hopefully work their way back to me via the fact it has a name on it if they were wanting to purchase. I'm not really a fan myself, but for most, it's at least a deterrent.
The whole pic is very "flat" and lacks contrast. The narrow depth of field doesn't help-everything needs to be sharp when you go in this close. Go into manual mode and use a higher "f" stop, say f-16, to increase the depth of field. I also think that you should have shot it all against a white background-the pale green just adds to the flatness problem. Re: the watermark issue-if I really wanted your pic it would take me less than a minute to remove the signature. It's no protection. Does it really matter if someone else uses it? I think photographers really take image theft way too seriously. They're flattering themselves-I work in the industry and I can assure you that image theft has been going on since way before digital arrived, and it ain't going to stop now.
See what I mean? Time taken to remove signature? 28 seconds
I've worked in web/graphic design for 8+ years now, and I tried the watermark thing for a little while, but the truth is, people will find ways around it, and in the end it's not really worth the effort! You could plaster a huge obtrusive watermark that's near impossible to remove, but then you'd be detracting significantly from the image itself, so what's the point?
My solution has been to just upload photos in not-as-high quality (800px max dimension), so they still look great on the web, but if anyone tries to download it, they can't do much else with it except set it as their desktop background!
Write a Reply
Sign up for a free account or Sign in to post a comment.
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
I would also give the whole image a bit more strength/contrast (used judiciously of course) to lift the faded colours.
@styru Perhaps until you've had to deal with someone stealing all your work and passing it off as their own but saying you stole it all of them?
Takes what? 30 seconds? to remove a watermark - this amateur version was done on my phone - a PC would give even better results. (I have defaced it to prevent re-use)
The 'no water mark version'
@frankhymus @jantan thank you, it was my first macro shot ever.. and I did choose a very difficult one, didn't realize it though until it was on my computer and I wasn't happy at all with it.
@pocketmouse @ozziehoffy Thank you! I will try that also! And B&W... never thought of that! I will totally do that! Clever clever!
@styru Yes, I am not the greatest fan of watermarks, but I have had my work stolen a lot -by mainly my friends!- so I have been trying to find a good one for the past year, and even if I don't like it I will put it up because I'm kinda paranoid about getting it stolen again. But I have found a more subtle and short one I like.. just my initials.
See what I mean? Time taken to remove signature? 28 seconds
I've worked in web/graphic design for 8+ years now, and I tried the watermark thing for a little while, but the truth is, people will find ways around it, and in the end it's not really worth the effort! You could plaster a huge obtrusive watermark that's near impossible to remove, but then you'd be detracting significantly from the image itself, so what's the point?
My solution has been to just upload photos in not-as-high quality (800px max dimension), so they still look great on the web, but if anyone tries to download it, they can't do much else with it except set it as their desktop background!