Spider Web/Leaves Critique

[KongeTorsk]

Spider Web


Here is an HDR image I processed in Photomatix and Photoshop. I used Photomatix to create the original HDR and then used Photoshop mainly to brighten the main foreground leaf and darken the background (not including the other leaves and trees).

My main question is regarding brightness/exposure. Is this image too dark to be appealing? I can brighten it quite a bit with minimal noise. Anything related to the tone of the picture is what I'm looking for most.

Of course, any comments and critique are welcome.

EDIT: Photo was added to make the background behind main spider webs darker and halos were taken away from top right.

[Shutteraddict]

Cool shot! I don't think it's too dark. If it were to brightened, I only would the slightest notch. The webs could be a more dynamic aspect of the photo, they are lost a little (making a web stand out is tricky). I have to say this though, the first thing that struck me when the shot popped up were the halos around the leaves screaming at me! I would def try to tone those down. Then again, I don't play with HDR alot so it's not an expert opinion I like the shot!

[KongeTorsk]

Originally Posted by Shutteraddict

Cool shot! I don't think it's too dark. If it were to brightened, I only would the slightest notch. The webs could be a more dynamic aspect of the photo, they are lost a little (making a web stand out is tricky). I have to say this though, the first thing that struck me when the shot popped up were the halos around the leaves screaming at me! I would def try to tone those down. Then again, I don't play with HDR alot so it's not an expert opinion I like the shot!

Thanks for the comment! The halos, though, I only see some around the top right (although thanks for catching me on those). Otherwise, those halos (the thin bright ones) were part of the natural image. Yeah, they actually looked that way. It was pretty awesome.

But if you see any others, let me know. My monitor may not be calibrated all that well and I'd hate to have everyone else look at my image with giant halos!

I think I might darken around those windows a bit to make the webs stand out more.

Thanks for catching me on some of this. I'll work on it right now.

[Inak]

I love this shot. It's a bit surreal - I'm not sure if you were looking for this in your pic. It could be the halos around the leaves, but personally I like this effect. I agree that the spiderweb is lost in it a bit, but since I can't stand spiders, it doesn't bother me.

[OutdoorCanvas]

I think the lighting on the green leaves is almost perfect. Could perhaps tone map it some to bring out the dark texture of the bark of the branch to enhance the contrast with the green leaves.

I love the detail of the main bright leaf at the bottom center of the frame. To me the focal point should be the spider web however, but it gets a bit lost in the photo. I think this needs to be cropped down some so you can focus more on the web and the dominant bright leaf at the bottom.

[KongeTorsk]

Originally Posted by OutdoorCanvas

I think the lighting on the green leaves is almost perfect. Could perhaps tone map it some to bring out the dark texture of the bark of the branch to enhance the contrast with the green leaves.

I love the detail of the main bright leaf at the bottom center of the frame. To me the focal point should be the spider web however, but it gets a bit lost in the photo. I think this needs to be cropped down some so you can focus more on the web and the dominant bright leaf at the bottom.

Thanks for the reply. I zoomed in quite a bit, but I simply can't find any crop I like of the spider web where the leaves don't capture your attention and/or keep quality with respect to image's noise/grain amount.

If anyone wants to try and crop it to show me what they mean, I'd be more than happy to allow you as long as you post it back here.

On that note: I think the leaves are almost too good to take away from them. Should I just clone out the spiderweb in general?