Easter Egg Printer Malfunction

[NinJA999]

Hey all,

I took <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninja999/2356075898/">this shot of our easter eggs this easter</a> . When I printed it out, the printer was out of cyan ink, and it came out looking wicked cool. After replacing the ink and printing a normal photo, I decided to attempt to replicate the awesome screwed-up version in PS. So, 1 normal image + CYMK mode + several hours =

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninja999/2356095646/" title="Easter As Seen By My Printer by NinJA999, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3125/2356095646_2beff9606e.jpg" width="500" height="377" alt="Easter As Seen By My Printer" /></a>

Yes, maybe I took it a bit far. But, it looks almost exactly like the printed picture did. And I think that's cool.

PP:
for initial photo: white balance, upped contrast, upped saturation, upped "clarity" (local contrast), tweaked curves.
for this edit: CYMK. heavy curves adjustments: no cyan, lower magenta, overall higher contrast. Manual masking of the curves to allow some cyan to show in shadow areas. Grain.

EXIF:
1/40
f/5.6
85 mm
ISO 400

So my questions are,
Does it have any artistic potential?
Did I waste time creating something that looks like crap (that I thought looked cool)?
Would you have done it differently?
and basic critiquing too.

Again, the original shot can be found <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninja999/2356075898/">here</a>.

Thanks a bunch,
Nick

[RexK_Cozumel]

If it looks good to you does it really matter what everyone else thinks? That being said I find that the picture is a little busy. My eye has a hard time settling on any one "subject" and keeps wandering all over the place.

[NinJA999]

I'm kind-of just curious to see what other people think. I took one look at the printed paper and thought it looked amazing, and I want to know if there's anyone out there who thinks so too. If not, well I still think it looks cool.

And yes, I think you're right that it's a little busy. I cropped this one a bit, but still.

[southernbelle]

It is a bit busy, but I love the exaggerated colors that you created in pp!!

[jblaschke]

It has the most impact once you've seen the original. The contrast in colors between the two images is striking. Taken solely on it's own merits, however, as others have said, it's a bit busy and lacks, shall we say, "oomph."

It is an interesting effect, however. If you're intrigued by it, I suggest setting up compositions with this goal in mind, then playing around in post-processing to see what kind of cool effects you can evoke. Serendipity is a wonderful thing!

[RussHeath]

The lack of blue and relative overexposure makes me think of cross-processing (http://www.layersmagazine.com/curvy-cross-processing.html). I think the colors have potential, but think about something such as a vignette at the corners to focus attention a little more towards the front and center egg. Sometimes the mistakes give us the best ideas . . . :rolleyes:

[SarahN]

I like it a lot--it is very exaggerated and saturated, but I personally really like that. It's just delightful.