Overgrown

[Tom Barry]

This is some metal yard art. I took it this afternoon after downloading Topaz Studio, version 2, to see if it is an improvement on version 1. It works faster and has more filters and Photoshop-like features. I worked this up in about 2 minutes (he said, inviting a reposte of "and it looks like it!"), including the digital frame. I think mono doesn't work well here, and also worked up a color one. Not sure about digital frames, but they are interesting, I think, for showing how a photo might work with a frame.
Overgrown by tombarry975, on Flickr
IMG_9448a by tombarry975, on Flickr

[Manfred M]

Sorry Tom, but neither shot is working for me the way they are right now:

1. The frames are a significant distraction. A simple white frame might work, but the complexity of the "faux" frame is just too much.

2. The images are to wild and busy. While there might be an interesting image here, it's simply too much work to try to figure it out.

3. I agree that the colour one looks a bit more interesting. That is very much related to how you did your B&W PP work. I suspect that if you worked around with the various tones, you could bring it along and get the subject to stand out better than it is in this version. A bit of a hint: I will take more than the 2 minutes you have put into the image with the Topaz Studio.

[Tom Barry]

Thanks for confirming my suspicions about these. They look even worse this morning than yesterday. Topaz filters have to be used with care and almost never without significant modification.

[xpatUSA]

Thanks for confirming my suspicions about these. They look even worse this morning than yesterday. Topaz filters have to be used with care and almost never without significant modification.

I haven't used Topaz but imagine that some care would be needed because of the dominant greens and reds with everything else being closer to neutral in chroma.

I found an improvement by using simple de-saturation followed by cranking up the reds and turning down the greens with RawTherapee's B&W equalizer ... but there are many other ways to skin the cat. The idea being to increase the luminosity contrast between the reds and the greens making the subject reds stand out more.

[Tom Barry]

Thanks, Ted. Very good advice.