Cruet and Glasses

[Manfred M]

I've changed where I inject the smoke / from (above the camera, rather than the camera left side) and have made some changes to my workflow to create a more subtle horizontal surface. I am going to sit on this for a few hours and tweak it a bit more before making a print.

I haven't been using Photoshop's pen tool to make selections lately, but it has worked out well for this one. It has a long and challenging learning curve, but once mastered, you can do things that just don't work well enough with some of the other tools.

[Manfred M]

As a bit of an academic exercise, I have also processed the same shot, but without the smoke and the effects that it creates. The smoke reduces contrast and saturation in addition to the obvious things it does to the image.

[Chataignier]

Terrific work as always. When looking at the smokey version I feel it is a bit too much. When looking at the no smoke version just after, I feel it lacks something. Perhaps between the two ? Are they identical apart from the smoke so you could open them as two layers and blend ?

[Manfred M]

Terrific work as always. When looking at the smokey version I feel it is a bit too much. When looking at the no smoke version just after, I feel it lacks something. Perhaps between the two ? Are they identical apart from the smoke so you could open them as two layers and blend ?

Thanks David - they are identical and I have tried an overlay of the two images, but the results are disappointing versus these two images. I think the best analogy is with drinks; certain ones tend to taste good hot and others cold, but tepid temperatures only seem to work well with a decent red wine or a nice single malt whisky...


They almost make an interesting diptych.