I attempted to address previous concerns/thoughts.
My questions; did it get better? Should I clone out/dodge the right edge where it gets a bit darker? Any thoughts crits, or helpful hints very welcome.
Dana, Not knowing your post-processing workflow I took it upon myself to make some selective adjustments in LR4... All are intended to enhance tomato's presents... If you did not want your image modified I will remove immediately... Here is what I did... +25 vibrance; +25 Clarity; -40 Blacks; - 40 Lights; -40 Shadows; +20 Highlights; +20 Contrast; Lightened shadow on lower right; Cloned out bright spots on glass. Do not know exactly what you where after but this will give you an idea of what you can do in LR4...
I think the thing that stands out for me is the lighting arrangement. I see that you have some side or at least oblique lighting to help with definition of your round subjects.
But you also have what looks like "on axis" lighting that is "glaring" straight back at you. If you look at the wine glass in particular, you can see how it has 'obliterated' the glass stem into a highlight blur, without much definition.
Having the strong frontal highlight becomes a bit of a distraction for me in the tomato & glass. If you can dial back your front lighting so that it is more of a fill intensity rather than a key intensity ... and/or move it "off axis" I think you'll get more "modeling" to give definition to your subjects.
As to the selective focus, with the wine glass in the back, I think that is fine enough, but the chosen aperture is showing the shape of the aperture blades fairly pronounced, such that it is another distraction for me. I like seeing the wine glass trying to frame the tomato, but I wonder if some tweaking there could improve that relationship a smidgeon.
Thanks all for the input.
Rusty, I don't have an off camera flash, I'll see what I can come up with for a lighting solution. In order to reduce the aperture from showing, would I close it down, or open it?
I'm assuming that you are using window light or reflector for your sidelighting then.
You could reduce the exposure (-EC) from your on camera flash, relegating it to fill duty, using your sidelighting as key (main). You should probably run a series of test shots at various lower flash power to get a feel for how to balance the two lights. You could also bounce your flash off a wall or foam core reflector so you change the angle from on axis to off axis.
Can you post up the original ... and was it from RAW, or jpg sooc? How did you determine color balance ... AWB or PP adjustment or set to flash, etc.
earthallen wrote:
My questions; did it get better?
I'd say so. The composition is certainly more interesting.
It looks a bit over exposed to me, and the dark of the wine is pulls my eye up and away from the salad. Those are more distracting to me than the dark area on the right.
