window

[Frog]

Exploring an alley in Puyallup the other day and spotted this window. It was noon so the light was flat. I have several without the flower but it seemed awful empty so I looked around for a prop and couldn't find a beer bottle and there was nothing else I wanted to touch so grabbed a few of these weeds.
Is there something in post processin I could do to make it stand out more? I've played with contrast, hue/saturation, etc.

[Greg McCary]

Frog I think the weeds stands out fine but you could always desaturate everything slightly but the yellow. I think it is fine as is though.

[GB1]

Frog - I think it's a worthy subject and I like the evenness of the lighting and the plainness of everything.

However, not sure on the ever so slight angle and tilt.. though I am NOT saying that you should necessarily have shot this one head on .. I am just not sure what would be best in that respect.

G

[Frog]

Thank you Greg. I'll try to figure out how to desaturate all but the flower.

GB, thanks. I actually did straighten it a bit but it was so slight I had trouble with the crop
I think I'll try correcting the tilt and maybe just mess around with this one some more.

[Frog]

I think this is a bit better. Played around some more but bumping the blacks to about 10 helped more than anything.

[Greg McCary]

Frog I don't know if you use PS or not but you can throw a rectangle around the image and then pull the corners with the skewing tools. It really is a neat tool.

[Frog]

Are you talking about the 'correct camera distortion' in filters?
PS elements 6

[jetrim]

Frog,
I think you're looking for a tool that allows the "skew" function. I'm w/ Greg on the desaturation. This is one of those rare instances where selective color can make this an outstanding shot. I like the concept a lot, and I'm impressed with your vision.

[gahspidy]

Frog, this is a very cool scene. i don't think you need to do anything other than adjust your levels.
desaturating is not necessary as there are really no other colors beside the flowers.
your edit is interesting but you have introduced some weird color effects in some areas which I'm not feeling good about.
Here is a screen shot of your level setting of the original and the setting I used to get a pretty nice result.

[Frog]

Thanks, Gary. I'll give it a try.
I too noticed the weird color effects..mostly blue on the mesh.
I tried doing selective color last night but the couldn't really make the flowers stand out as they are so small.

[Frog]

And I still don't know what a skew tool is but I did the best I could with 'correct camera distortion' and cropping edges.
This is what it looks like with your settings but I know I'll have to do a reshoot. The weird color artifacts are noise from forgetting to reduce my iso from 1600

[Anbesol]

Yeah the noise is a bit excessive. Just a thought, but what if the "white" wall was closer to damn near hot-white?

Frog, my only criticisms are more subject than photographer/y oriented, I dont particularly like the white painted brick wall - a more appealing brick or wood architecture would have done more for me, plus the diamond grid gated windows make it a little more unpleasant. On the other hand, I really like what you did with lines and shapes here, you paid particularly close attention to compose it perpendicular with absolutely no perspective distortion. Its also a very rule of thirds oriented shot, and the curtain being slightly open accented by the flowers caddy-corner were a nice touch. I am also a bit curious about the texture of the curtains in the top window, they look sort of obscure, are those patterns part of the window or part of the curtain? Could you show us a closer crop.

May I have a go with a different take on the levels?

[GB1]

I like the geometric adjustment! Not sure if the selective color adds too much here but it is a good idea to do it.
G

[gahspidy]

And I still don't know what a skew tool is but I did the best I could with 'correct camera distortion' and cropping edges.
This is what it looks like with your settings but I know I'll have to do a reshoot. The weird color artifacts are noise from forgetting to reduce my iso from 1600

Hmm, not sure why your looks this way. This is not the result that I got from the settings I showed you.My result had the walls pretty much near white and there were no colors introduced such as in the curtains and noise.
I think the flowers stand out fine against the white and need no additional selective help. Just get the whites white.

[Frog]

Ok, thanks Gary, Gb, Anbesol.

Post processing was what I was looking for advice on for the most part as I thought it might have potential. Next time I'll shoot in better light and remember to turn my iso down from 1600.
I think it miight remain as something to do some wild stuff for fun with. Glowing edges and all those weird things