Floppy Poppy

[Round Tuit]

I caught this poppy just before the petals fell off the flower.



I burned the centre part but I am not sure if I went far enough.

[Round Tuit]

Having taken a more critical second look, I think that the petal could use a slight drop in saturation as well as some localized dodging and burning. Stay tuned for version 2.0!

[DanK]

As long as you are working on it:

Now that I can see it on a good monitor, the saturation doesn't bother me. However, the harsh lighting does. So IMHO burning and dodging might help. HOwever, the very narrow, really bright lines will be tough to deal with (they would be for me, anyway) because they are so bright, so narrow, and so irregular. One idea I had is to select those areas with a luminosity mask, which would automatically feather it appropriately if you create the right mask, and then apply that to to a curves tool for burning, to a duplicate layer with a multiply blend mode, or both. Here is a quicky that does both but with no other edits. Not a final product, but it illustrates the idea.

[DanK]

This is all I did.

[Round Tuit]

Thank you Dan,
The luminosity mask is a really good idea. I have used it in the past but forgot to try it with this flower.
I did the dodging and burning using the two curves method. I left more variations in the brightness of the petals than you did. I think that Manfred also likes to reduce the variations as much as possible while I think that some variations help emphasize the three dimensionality of the flower.
I also used selective color to bring the color of the petals closer to the physical flower.

Here is what I came up with in the end:

[DanK]

The new version is much improved and better than mine. I intended mine just to illustrate the method. I personally have no problem with very bright areas if they don't distract. And you may recall a disagreement years ago between Manfred on the one had and me and one other person (Ted, screen name xpat USA) on the other about crushed blacks. I don't crush shadows when there is something there I want, but I feel free to use pure black when that's my intent, usually for backgrounds.

The burning worked well. The brightest areas were bright enough that I wasn't sure it work be sufficient. When it's not, it can create a gray overlay. Hence my fussing with the multiply blend mode, which appears not to have been necessary.

[LenR]

Agreed, nicely done Andre, bright spots are well controlled.

As an aside Ted (xpat USA) has not posted for some years now. Used to be some heated debates!

[Round Tuit]

Thank you Dan.
I value and appreciate your opinion when it comes to photography. Recovering the right colour for the petals also made a big difference for me.
I remember more than one discussion with Manfred regarding black background. I personally agree with you and routinely crush my black background. It provides insurance against people who have monitors that are set too bright because they can show detail in the shadows that are not visible on my dim monitor.

[connectinfosoft]

Looking very elegant.

[Round Tuit]

Thank you Manoj and welcome to this forum.

I hope we will get to see some of your photos.

[William W]

Andre,
FYI the link you are using to view the image, [https://web.ncf.ca/andre.lagace/CiC/...20Poppy-2.jpg], creates a security warning when viewed through the latest version of Firefox and/or a tight security firewall.
Mentioning this because other Members using Firefox will likely not access the image.
regards,
Bill

REF:
Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead
Firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to web.ncf.ca. If you visit this site, attackers could try to steal information like your passwords, emails, or credit card details.
What can you do about it?
The issue is most likely with the website, and there is nothing you can do to resolve it. You can notify the website’s administrator about the problem.

[Round Tuit]

William,
Thanks for the info. I must admit to being puzzled by this situation. The web site is space made available by my ISP. Every photo that I have posted on CiC for the past 11 years has been a link to that storage space. There have been occasion where a photo did not show up for everybody but the problem usually cleared by itself fairly quickly.
I am using the latest version of Firefox myself and it is working well on both sites(CiC and Photo.net). I can also access the photos with the latest version of Chrome.

It is easy for me to upload directly to Photo.net. So I will use that method from now on.

[William W]

André,

Thank you for the response. FYI - I have investigated this matter further.
1. > checked and my Firefox browser is up to date and I tried the link again and got the same warning
2. > access by Chrome (latest version) also blocked
3. > using both browsers a certificate misconfiguration at site -[web.ncf.ca] is mentioned and suggest contacting the Administration there.

4. Further investigation -
> however, I attempted to directly get to [web.ncf.ca] and doing so revealed Telstra (Australia's National Telecom) has blocked the site.

Telstra has a facility to request further investigation and potentially unblocking blocked sites: I have emailed Telstra outlining the details of the issues above and at Photo.net, my connection to both sites and requesting that they re-investigate this matter.

Reiterating that the warning suggests that the Administration of [web.ncf.ca] be contacted: I have not done that.

Hope the above is helpful.

WW

[Round Tuit]

William,

I have confirmed that I am using the latest version of Firefox on Windows 11. Clicking the shield icon on the address bar confirms that I am securely connected to the site. Firefox used to provide access to the certificate of the site but it now only report that the site is secure.

I will investigate to see if there is a way to look at the actual site certificate.

[Round Tuit]

William,

I was able to access the certificate using Chrome. It indicate that the certificate is valid, was issued by an organization called "Let's Encrypt" using the common name "R13" and was issued on 9 May 2026.