Sally pic

[Dylan8i]

Wanted to know what you guys thought of this picture.... its really to small to do it justice so ill include a crop of the salamander so you can at least see it.

im thinking of getting it printed fairly large, but not sure how it would turn out. it looks great on my monitor (17" wide screen) at 1:1 and even closer until it gets pixelated.





crop

[DrRoebuck]

The cropped version is much better.

The copyright in the first one is way too distracting, btw.

[Dylan8i]

the copyright is only there for the web, and thus suppose to be "distracting"

[Kathryn002]

I also prefer the cropped version.

[Sushigaijin]

have you considered an edge to edge square crop? I've been overusing the square aspect ratio recently, and it seems to do portraits like this one well.

[Dylan8i]

thanks erik, i was actually considering a 20 x 20 canvas printing (canvas would add texture to the moss i think) ive been wanting to try it out, and this might be the one.

i was hoping to see if anyone would suggest something to that effect, cropping out the black top etc.

[Loupey]

Dylan, while I generally don't like black backgrounds for nature/macro images, I think it works well here. I like the diagonal transition line. Makes the salamander appear to be "coming out of the darkness" so to speak.

Two things I'll point out: 1) there is a natural "V" formed by the foreground, I think placing the sally squarely within the V would have been ideal. As it is, I think the foreground is overlapping too much; and 2) the obscurred hind legs and tail make it appear as if this little fella has been amputated about the waist.

Not sure about the focus. It appears to be across the right (his left) eye but seems just slightly in front of the left (his right) eye. Blown up 20" x 20", it may be enough to drive you nuts. Might be just me tho

[freygr]

The problem is do you have sufficient pixels not to go over 72 pixels per inch?

[fx101]

How many megapixels is the camera you shot this with? If it was film then a drum scan will get you a large enough file to print at decent quality for a 20x20. If it was under 10 megapixels there's no way you're going to get an acceptable 20x20 print out . You could make some nice 8x10's though.

[Dylan8i]

it was shot with a d200 (10.2 mp) on the largest jpeg setting. when i upload for the internet it only uploads at something like 640 by 520 or what ever the limits are. the actual image in my file is 3872 X 2592. how ever i jsut got doen sorting through the rest of my images i took later that night and the next day, and there may be one i like even better.... so i may post it here and see what people say.

[Sushigaijin]

Did you ever try a crop?

One thing I noticed on my second pass was that the left eye is pretty dark. I might personally use a bit of dodge before printing - prints ALWAYS come out looking a bit darker than monitors, just based on the luminance.

As far as print size, I'm sure that a 20x20 will be fine, on canvas. Canvas is rough enough where I doubt you will see any benefit in higher DPI. It's a bit like printing on concrete - just too porous for super fine detail, but pretty enough texture to sacrifice a bit of that for aesthetic.