Hello Sunflower! CC wanted. Do I need to bump up the exposure?

[Kathy O]

Does this photo need to have the exposure bumped up? Second guessing myself And how do I get rid of the orange around the petals - I use lightroom.

[Digital]

Kathy, I like this photo; however I believe (IMHO) that the sky competes with your sunflower.


Bruce

[Manfred M]

The shot works well for me Kathy. The backlighting is a great way to treat this scene; I like the way that the light passes through the petals of the flower.

I wouldn't suggest that there is an exposure issue as the shot seems to cover the full range from whites to blacks. Where you might improve the shot a bit is to dodge the flower itself to bring out the mid-tones a bit more.

[Ken MT]

To me the orange round the petals may be camera movement. It is on the right hand side of the top petals only. In addition the petals on the left hand appear to be more in focus than those on the right.

[FootLoose]

I think you have a good composition, Kathy. The overall exposure is ok but you might just brighten the flower a bit. Subtlety is the key.

[Shadowman]

Have you tried using the color picker in LR for CA reduction? I've tried it on some of my images but it tends to add a grey tint to the area if used to much.

[DanK]

Kathy,

I agree with Manfred, but for a different reason: the flower, which you want people to focus on, is much darker than the sky, and dodging it will both bring out detail on the flower and compete better with the sky. For example, here is a very quick dodge:



I'm really puzzled by the artifacts. (You have some localized blurring on the left, in addition to the orange fringe at the top.) The orange can't be camera movement because parts of the image are tack sharp. It's on an edge that would be prone to CA (a high-contrast edge), but CA is usually green or magenta, not orange, and you only have it on some of the edges. The image has no exif information, which makes it harder to diagnose. The localized blurring might be motion of the flower, if there was some wind. The orange really has me puzzled. Did you process this yourself or shoot jpeg in the camera? If you processed it, what did you do? If you let the camera do it, did you use any unusual settings?

[billtils]

+1 to DanK's comments.