Gavin Tow
September 2019 - Looking Up
About the Image(s)
This was taken last year in the Spring when my Crabapple tree first started blooming way at the top of one of the larger limbs. I liked it because of the various pink colors the blooms had. Even the background has blooms. It was taken with a Rebel T5I and a 250mm Canon lens.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
7 comments posted
I'm enjoying the gorgeous pink color and the shapes of the blossoms. One of my favorite trees. Since the flowers are underexposed, I'm guessing that the white sky behind has fooled the camera's light meter and closed up the aperture. A couple suggestions for this situation are either to use the flash or to use spot metering on a blossom.
When I tried to lighten a section of the blossoms to imitate a flash, I discovered you had put a vignette on your image. My other edit is meant to encourage you to get in closer. I think that having all those white spots of the sky are distracting. I know it is hard to find a tree that is so thick with blossoms that the sky doesn't show up as a bunch of distracting bright spots. Looking sideways or down will give those background spots a different and sometimes less distracting brightness and color.
I'm an advocate of post-editing removal of spots I find distracting. Sometimes with the clone tool. Sometimes with the burn tool. Posted: 09/17/2019 11:29:27
When I tried to lighten a section of the blossoms to imitate a flash, I discovered you had put a vignette on your image. My other edit is meant to encourage you to get in closer. I think that having all those white spots of the sky are distracting. I know it is hard to find a tree that is so thick with blossoms that the sky doesn't show up as a bunch of distracting bright spots. Looking sideways or down will give those background spots a different and sometimes less distracting brightness and color.
I'm an advocate of post-editing removal of spots I find distracting. Sometimes with the clone tool. Sometimes with the burn tool. Posted: 09/17/2019 11:29:27
Thanks ! I didn't realize adjustments were made when I had reviewed it. Thanks for suggestions. Posted: 09/19/2019 13:56:14
The crab apple blossoms are a lovely color. I agree with Carole about the "white spots". Also I hope you did some closeups of small groupings of flowers. The only thing I could think of to soften the white spots was to add a new layer filled with light pink and change the blending mode to Darken. I tried a darker pink and it changed the flowers too much. Posted: 09/18/2019 10:56:19
Posted: 09/18/2019 10:58:41
What a great idea! I'm going to try it in the future with the addition of using a mask and brushing the effect onto just the light areas. Posted: 09/23/2019 09:54:00
I love looking up through blossoms or leaves to see the transparency and softness of the colors. I also prefer the saturation that slight under exposure can give. That said, I do like the light pink background fill. It looks very natural. As to removing spots, I prefer to use the healing brush rather than the clone tool. But sometimes the clone tool is the only one that works. Posted: 09/26/2019 14:53:38
I, too, often use Photoshop's healing brush CTRL-J instead of CTRL-S. Fewer obvious copycat stamps! Posted: 09/26/2019 17:15:18