I'd welcome some feedback on this shot... the idea, execution and post processing. I had this idea today to try and shoot a refracted flag image in someone's eye (mine in this case). A local photo outlet is having a photo contest where the theme is "Red, White, & Blue". This was one of my ideas.

Comments & suggestions are appreciated...

You have an excellent image, but may I suggest a few tweaks for post processing I believe would improve it significantly?

1) Crop a little from the right may improve the composition without centering the flag too much and without losing any useful detail.

2) There are a few bright scratch-like highlight that distract. It would help to clone stamp them away.

3) The flag has a slight blue haze. I suggest dodging the flag a little to whiten the white stripes and brighten the red stripes.

4) I suggest some sharpening, perhaps with Smart Sharpen.

5) I suggest boosts to brightness and contrast to bring out the texture of the iris.

6) I suggest boosting the saturation to brighten the color of the flag reflection and make it visually jump.

I can post an example of my suggestions if you'd like to see an illustration.

Many thanks for the suggestions AntiPode. Those are exactly the kinds of things I was hoping for!
I saw that blue cast right after I posted it. I will work on the tweaks and suggestions you made to see if I can find all the things you mentioned and improve the image. With the depth of field so small on the macro shots, the flag is nice and crisp, but the iris is not quite as sharp. I have a couple of ways to sharpen it some though.

I'll repost an edit later.

I think AuntiPode has covered it - interesting concept & good luck in the competition.

Look forward to seeing the re-work,

Bob

OK. See if this is better. Seems like the whites of the eye might still need some work, but I'm not sure...
Edit: The image loses some pop on the flag when I resize and upload. I guess the resizing is hurting it. Suggestions? The flag is more dynamic in the native image on my pc.

Much - might still clean up the iris a bit.

Bob

Bob Jarman wrote:
Much - might still clean up the iris a bit.

Bob

Do you mean sharpness or the reflections?

Nice rework.
I'd take a tad more from the right.
I wouldnt worry about the effects of compression for web, unless you are only sharing this image online. I have seen reductions in vibrancy, saturation, and detail with downsizing for web.

Scott

I like the crop of your second version. It's about perfect to my eye. Somehow you picked up some additional artifacts in the white of the eye to the left of the iris.

To make it pop, I'd suggest:

1) A little smart sharpen, perhaps 0.4 pixel at 100% gaussian.

2) I'd add about 20 each to brightness and contrast.

3) Drop the exposure offset, perhaps about 0.0130.

4) Perhaps warm the image a bit, maybe with a color balance yellow of something like -4.

5) I'd still recommend clone stamping out scratch-like highlight in the iris and the new artifacts.

It doesn't look like a reflection, it looks like a composition. And the sclera looks horrific. She should get that checked if it really looks like that IRL.