Vase of Flowers - feedback please

[phaedin]

Just some flowers at home.

Trying to work on my composition, shot it in JPEG + RAW so i will include the camera version and my tweeked version
I tried a preset (vivid) to try and make the colours pop a bit more and make the flowers stand out.

Also trying to work on my depth of field to try and isolate the flowers

(these are full sized images)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8152/7...bd97d75b_m.jpg


now the camera version uncropped

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7232/7...8e1de42f_m.jpg



Hopefully the EXIF data shows up if not then focal length 18.0mm F3.5 1/60sec

any Comments or feed back will be much appreciated

Thanks

Mike

[DanK]

Mike,

You intended these to be full sized, but the link takes me to an image that is too tiny to evaluate.

Why bother with two versions? Edit it to your liking and then post that one. Personally, I never bother with JPEGs unless I just want a snapshot and don't care about details. The raw file is the one that will give you the most control over processing.

Dan

[phaedin]

I am going to try this method for uploading my photo and see how this goes

This image is my first attempt at post processing a RAW file- using the software that came with my camera.


Mike

[JPS]

Hi Mike,
Welcome to CiC and congratulation on sorting out the up-load; many people have the same issue at first.

I have a few comments that I hope will give you something to consider, but as always it's your picture so it's how you feel about it that matters.
Anyhow, it appears to me the bottom central leaf is the point most in focus, with the rest of the flowers looking a bit soft. I know you were trying to use DOF to seperate the flowers from the background, but I feel the background is still too distracting. Perhaps a coloured sheet or piece of card placed behind the flowers would have given you better isolation. If this was something you wanted to explore, I would suggest you leave a gap of a few feet between the subject and the background sheet / card.

Lastly I personally would have re-arranged the floowers in the vase, I'm sure they look lovely, but from the angle the picture was taken the yellow/golden flowers should be moved into a position which would compliment the Deep Royal blue flowers already at the front.

All the above are just my opinions and no offence will be taken if you feel some or all of my comments are only fit for the bin.

Thanks for sharing.

[phaedin]

Thanks for your feed back John.

I agree that the Focus point was on that leaf and not the flowers.
I am still getting to grips with the depth of field - trying to gauge how long the focus point is.

The sheet or card is a good idea, i was hoping that the background would be more blurry and less distracting.

Mike

[Geoff F]

Providing you have suitable software for auto alignment, Mike, that sort of shot can work well with merging more than one focus point. Subject to using a tripod etc.

As long as you can get the alignment perfect you can do the merging with layers and masks if you don't have auto blending.

It does take, from my experience, a bit of experimentation to get a nice looking background effect. Beware of variations in lighting or texture of any backdrop.

I have successfully used printed backgrounds of greenery or sky, etc, but I find it must be printed on matte paper, never gloss, and placed at a suitable distance.

Your basic exposure, etc, here is good so I would expect that a little more experimentation should produce some excellent results.