Welcoming Church Door

[StuffNThings]

Hi! I came upon this church on the way home today and immediately hopped out for a picture. How do you like the PP? I used gradient map to remove the color, brushed on top of the layer to bring back the red door, increased contrast and added a black vignette. Did I overdo it? Thanks!

Camera: D70
Lens: 18-70mm
ISO: 200
Aperture: 8
Aperture Priority Mode
PP: Photoshop Elements

[Murtasma]

I think you may have saturated the reds a little too much, it may also be because this is an attachment instead of hosted on photobucket or flickr. The forum tends to compress images more then sites dedicated to photo sharing.

I think a portrait orientation would work a lot better for this image. I really want to see a little past the bottom of the door and the top of the arch to help frame the door better.

[Trader]

In addition to the above comments (which I agree with) I think you cropped off too much of the framing around the door. We have no idea where the door ends on the bottom and the top of that frame is cropped off also. I don't feel that the black vignette adds to the compositon also.

i love old church doors, really lovely! i like the pp. but i was wondering if this image was cropped? if so, i think id like to see it NOT cropped so much. and possibly straighten out a bit, other than that... i love it

[ckodonne]

You have a good idea going here...I really like the subject. I agree with everyone else on this one. It's a bit too tightly cropped and could benefit from a portrait orientation. Also, I noticed that it's not entirely straight...going off to the left a bit.

I would go back and zoom out a little...take a little bit more than what you intend to keep so that you can straighten it out without having to crop out too much. It's difficult to get shots with straight lines looking...well, straight, even with a tripod. 99% of the time you need to adjust it using rulers.

I personally like the red saturation, just as long as you're not over-saturating it so much that you lose detail in the door...to me it looks smooth, but if theres texture that's been blown out that I don't know about, I would tone it down.

Regardless, great shot here and I like the post processing.