Try 2: not quite an abstract

[DanK]

Try, try, try again.

Here is another image of the rocks I posted earlier. To clarify, I am not aiming for an abstract image that is divorced from its setting. Rather, I am trying to highlight attractive patterns in their setting. I used to have a gallery on my website labeled "patterns". If I still had it, that's where this would go.

I did considerable burning and dodging, but I deliberately left a large range of tonality to create the appearance of depth. As in the previous image, I did more than I would usually do to boost texture and (to a lesser degree) saturation.

C&C welcome.

[Manfred M]

Dan - now that I have a better idea of what you are trying to accomplish, I would suggest you might want to pay attention to what is happening around the edges of the frame and make some very small subtle adjustments (dodging and burning) to places where some of the shapes and shadows hit those areas.

That way the viewer's eyes will tend to stay in the central areas of the image and would not get pulled out of the image by those small (sometimes very small) distractions. I've done a quick retouch of those areas to try to show what I mean.






If you open one of the images in Lightbox and press the arrow keys to move between the images, I think this will be more clear than trying to put it into words.

[DanK]

Manfred,

Thanks. This is helpful. In fact, a couple of your edits are more extreme variations of edits I had already done. I had lightened the bottom right, the little pool on the left, and the tiny area at the top. I think your more substantial dodging is better than the amount I had done.

Dan

[Manfred M]

Manfred,

Thanks. This is helpful. In fact, a couple of your edits are more extreme variations of edits I had already done. I had lightened the bottom right, the little pool on the left, and the tiny area at the top. I think your more substantial dodging is better than the amount I had done.

Dan

Dan - when I look at an image that has had all of the global and area adjustments made and all the major surgery has been completed (healing, cloning), the next steps I take are:

1. Looking for distracting elements at or near the edges of the frame. These tend attract the viewers attention and I prefer to keep the viewer's eyes in the image. I will tend to make the edge look more homogeneous (almost a buffer area between the main part of the image and the edge of the image); and

2. "Calm" the overall image to play up the details that need attention and play down areas that attract and hold the viewer in places where I don't want this to happen.

[DanK]

Manfred,

thanks. These are both among my steps as well

Dan