A Diamond in the Rough - Herkimer Diamonds
by dassilem

Comment by Tap10:
Sorry, the out of focus bit distracted me

A Diamond in the Rough - Herkimer Diamonds
by dassilem

Comment by lifternessjt:
Is this for real!!!

A Diamond in the Rough - Herkimer Diamonds
by dassilem

Comment by sherpet:
"WOW".....

Yellow Socks
by dassilem

Comment by mk:
Hey Melissa - this is a definite improvement over your other entry, the contrast looks much better. Looks like maybe you oversaturated the yellows just a bit because the legs are looking kind of yellowy (or maybe you're jaundiced?) Good luck on your next entry. :)

Class of 82 RULES!
by dassilem

Comment by Marc923:
I missed this in the challenge. Nice shot. And you're right, 82 rules!

Yellow Socks
by dassilem

Comment by Melethia:
Pink background kinda clashes.

Yellow Socks
by dassilem

Comment by GuGi:
I like the yellow in this picture, but the pink really throws it off. A better background would have worked wonders.

Yellow Socks
by dassilem

Comment by Neuferland:
Yes they are and a yellow ankle bracelet. A rather boring shot overall though, nothing to hold my attention and keep it here. Sorry a 4

I hear a Bee buzzing around...
by dassilem

Comment by dassilem:
Thanks mk..it does help. I was reading the posts yesterday about histograms and thought it was only refering to on camera. I will practice using this.

I appreciate your help. I seem to have 'too soft' of photos hopefully this will help me improve.

I hear a Bee buzzing around...
by dassilem

Comment by mk:
Hi Melissa,

I saw your post in the forums about wanting more comments. You've gotten some good advice already so I'm not going to comment about subject matter and setup, but instead about a few quick adjustments you could have done to this photo to help it a bit.

This is the histogram of your entry.



Ideally, you want to get as far to the right as you can without hitting the edge but this is okay. But you'll want each of the end pointers to be right under the ends of the histogram. If you hold your mouse on the one of the right and hold down the ALT key, the photo will turn black. Move the pointer to the left until just before you start to see some other colors appear (you'll have to move until that point and then back off a bit.) Likewise, do the same with the left arrow, except this time the picture will be white. The middle pointer you can move back and forth to adjust the contrast a bit.

Then, your histogram will look kind of like this and you'll see that your entry has a bit more "pop."



You can also use a little Unsharp Mask to sharpen it up a little.

Then compare the two.



Hopefully that helps a little. Let me know if you'd like me to take your stuff down!