tooth of the tiger: continuation of a theme - was hoping for larger than life, fading away into the distance. Coming at us out of the darkness/past. I fear I would have been been...

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

continuation of a theme -

was hoping for larger than life, fading away into the distance. Coming at us out of the darkness/past. I fear I would have been been better served to keep it all sharp.

For your consideration

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RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

It works very well for me, just as it is, especiallyt when viewed larger.

Frank2013 Loc: San Antonio, TX. & Milwaukee, WI.

pfrancke wrote:

continuation of a theme -

was hoping for larger than life, fading away into the distance. Coming at us out of the darkness/past. I fear I would have been been better served to keep it all sharp.

For your consideration

I will agree Piet. I love the lighting and detail though.

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

I too like this as it is. The slight fade out adds dimension and gives a feeling of distance. I think you are conveying you vision for this shot.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

I also think I "get" what you were after, Piet. Looks terrific! Carol's mention of added dimension makes sense to me, as does yours about coming out of the dark.

For me, a fully sharp image would be more documentary than mood- or message-related.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

If there was a bit more light on the bottom left corner it would give it more of a "comin' at ya" look.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

pfrancke wrote:

continuation of a theme -

was hoping for larger than life, fading away into the distance. Coming at us out of the darkness/past. I fear I would have been been better served to keep it all sharp.

For your consideration

Now THAT's undeniably and malevolently ominous!

Sleep tight, kiddies!

Dave

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

RichardTaylor wrote:

It works very well for me, just as it is, especiallyt when viewed larger.

thank you Richard

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

Frank2013 wrote:

I will agree Piet. I love the lighting and detail though.

thank you Frank - I like the first one also, perhaps because of the form or color, I can't pin down why.

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

Cwilson341 wrote:

I too like this as it is. The slight fade out adds dimension and gives a feeling of distance. I think you are conveying you vision for this shot.

thank you Carol

Linda From Maine wrote:

I also think I "get" what you were after, Piet. Looks terrific! Carol's mention of added dimension makes sense to me, as does yours about coming out of the dark.

For me, a fully sharp image would be more documentary than mood- or message-related.

Thank you Linda

This is what I attempted. But when "faking" blur and sharpness, it is SO hard to get it smooth and right. With my small DOF, it is either sharp or badly blurred, so I tried taking some of the middle area to try to transition between them.

I fully agree about the mood vs documentary aspect. My goal 100 percent is to get macro shots to have mood and tension.

Perhaps the biggest thing I like about macro is that I can put a couple of hours into it in the evening when it suits. In most other forms of photography, your schedule is dictated to you. With macro I can try to learn and improve at my own convenience.

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

Uuglypher wrote:

Now THAT's undeniably and malevolently ominous!

Sleep tight, kiddies!

Dave

LOL - thank you Dave. I did not "clearly" state that as my goal, but it undeniably is always a driving factor for me!!!

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

R.G. wrote:

If there was a bit more light on the bottom left corner it would give it more of a "comin' at ya" look.

Thank you R.G. Your advise helps me understand more about how things work to the eye. What you said would never have been spotted by me. I attempted to do this and you can see the results. I probably should have gotten the Bottom part of the bottom left brighter, but was fearful that there just was too much noise in that area. But I did try to do what you said to attempt to "swing" it back into our direction.

Again, a big thank you for helping me see.

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Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

pfrancke wrote:

Thank you R.G. Your advise helps me understand more about how things work to the eye. What you said would never have been spotted by me. I attempted to do this and you can see the results. I probably should have gotten the Bottom part of the bottom left brighter, but was fearful that there just was too much noise in that area. But I did try to do what you said to attempt to "swing" it back into our direction.

Again, a big thank you for helping me see.

Subtle and effective :thumbup:

R.G. Loc: Scotland

I've just picked up on your original query about leaving it sharp. I'd say what you've done works fine, but perhaps just ease off on the softening a touch. The softness doesn't have to intrude quite so far into the image to have its effect.

I would say don't worry too much about noise coming out from the lightened bits. The rest of the tooth has a fairly rough texture, so a bit of noise isn't going to jump out at us.

What I've found with lightening dark stuff is that the saturation sometimes needs a bit of a nudge after lightening, and if the dark area was dark because of shadowing, it might benefit from a slight WB shift from blue to yellow - although in this case the ambient light looks more amber than yellow (there's always the option of adding a tint if the WB shift doesn't work).

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

Linda From Maine wrote:

Subtle and effective :thumbup:

thank you Linda.

R.G. wrote:

I've just picked up on your original query about l... (show quote)

Thank you R.G.

R.G. Again, you have given me much to ponder. I am going to do a "do over" with your advise in mind. I am not always so good with using color shifting to my advantage. It happens, but mostly by accident than by design. Anyway, here is the image I have that I will begin from (except that mine is 16 bit). Much work for me to do, but I want to see if I can pull off a little bit about what you are saying.

Thank you for the homework assignment!!!!

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