May not be a keeper, which is fine. I need the feedback. Appreciate your both responding.
The point?
Graphic quality, effective use of pattern. Feedback about the image in general, how engaging, effective it is, processing suggestions.
Sorry, couldn't resist ... let me see if I can come up with some good pointers for this one.
Okay, seriously now:
I'm diggin' the pattern & lines and subject perspective that brings the viewer "up close & personal" ... but the processing is "Hmmm, I'm not quite sure ... will have to give it some thought provoking consideration."
Toss it in a different frame or two ... maybe classic black or chiseled gray ... and see how if it presents differently.
I find B&W conversions to be very difficult. I am certainly not going to try to improve on this; however, I like to see some pure blacks, pure whites and mostly midtones. This seems just a bit harsh and I would like to see more midtones. Printing B&W files is a major pain. Most printers and printing services seem to struggle with getting decent tones. I would guess this will appear even more contrasty and harsher when printed.
Finally, I think this is an ok image, but nothing special. If it was mine, I would probably just leave it in my achives with my hundreds of other not so special cactus images.
Ouch! I understand the dilemma. Reminds me a bit of some experiments I did, back in the day with pseudo solarization in the darkroom. It's on the difficult edge of like but not quite there and it's difficult to say why. The upper portion has some processing problems. Some more gamma bump may help, but my intuition says the real problem is selection/composition.
Jim,
I am with you on "OK image" not quite getting to the delete category but...
Karen,
It makes sense that it reminds you of pseudo solarization in the darkroom. Solarization filter in CEP 4 and other tweak.
I usually prefer not to mention defects I see first, in order to see if others notice them and find them to be an issue. One problem was some very hot spots on the upper right and along the cactus upper left. I did some burning but not happy with the results.
