First time posting, and its my first heavily processed photo

[Darder]

I took photo as I was leaving class one day, then for some reason I had the urge to do what I did to the photo. Let me know what you think please, specifically what can I do to make this pop more, and honestly any and all critiques are more then welcomed.

Thanks



*edit* almost forgot
Shot on a Pentax K100D with the kit lens 18-55mm

[windrider86]

You did a great job at the selective coloring.
A couple things need to happen here. The crop needs to be closer in. Too much empty space leaves eyes wandering away from your focal point.
The flower itself needs some pizzaz. Its too dark and could use a bit of contrast

[vsa]

Good job masking the flower and nice background blur.

I had to fiddle with your photo for a while. It's just so much fun. But I think I got some pop into it.

Here's what I did.
I duplicated the photo to new layer and did a LAB color bump. Switched back to RGB color space and converted the bottom layer to black & white fully. Changed the LAB layer to soft light to give some color. Lightened the flower a bit with curves. Did some trickery with another curves layer on soft light to get a slight green tint on the background.. but nothing too noticeable. Sharpened the flower. Added some saturation to whole image and lightened a bit. Finally burned some of those shadows on the flower petals. (and then sRGB raped the image -.- .....it probably still looks too dark and whatnot)
If you want the .psd I can send it to you.

So yea.. I'm along the lines with what windrider86 said. Didn't bother messing with the crop though.

And welcome to the forum.

[Darder]

Originally Posted by windrider86

You did a great job at the selective coloring.
A couple things need to happen here. The crop needs to be closer in. Too much empty space leaves eyes wandering away from your focal point.
The flower itself needs some pizzaz. Its too dark and could use a bit of contrast

gotcha thanks, luckily i shoot in raw so i can edit, re-edit, and edit again and all that jazz

[Darder]

Originally Posted by vsa

Good job masking the flower and nice background blur.

I had to fiddle with your photo for a while. It's just so much fun. But I think I got some pop into it.

Here's what I did.
I duplicated the photo to new layer and did a LAB color bump. Switched back to RGB color space and converted the bottom layer to black & white fully. Changed the LAB layer to soft light to give some color. Lightened the flower a bit with curves. Did some trickery with another curves layer on soft light to get a slight green tint on the background.. but nothing too noticeable. Sharpened the flower. Added some saturation to whole image and lightened a bit. Finally burned some of those shadows on the flower petals. (and then sRGB raped the image -.- .....it probably still looks too dark and whatnot)
If you want the .psd I can send it to you.

So yea.. I'm along the lines with what windrider86 said. Didn't bother messing with the crop though.

And welcome to the forum.

this got me thinking... isn't it possible to add a secondary lightsource in photoshop/lightroom... i'll hafta investigate.

thanks.

[windrider86]

I have never touched lightroom, but I would guess it has a dodge and burn tool. You can use your didge tool to lighten up areas as well. Set it to light, midtone or shadows - depending on what you want to lighten