Complementary Fashion
by zclare

Comment by maggie621:
The only thing that throws me off here is the angle of the bottom part of the vertical line

Complementary Fashion
by zclare

Comment by Millere81979:
Very cool!

Complementary Fashion
by zclare

Comment by keibo84:
could use a little more saturation and contrast

Complementary Fashion
by zclare

Comment by KarenNfld:
Cute idea but I think your lighting needs work. It's a bit dull and the shadows are distracting.

Complementary Fashion
by zclare

Comment by hughletheren:
Great idea - perhaps you need some more light?

Complementary Fashion
by zclare

Comment by bubeltrubel:
this made me smile. fantastic idea and great grafic composition. Well done!

Complementary Fashion
by zclare

Comment by andrewt:
Lighting could have been better to bring our the colors & reduce the harsh shadows , but nice idea - 6

Complementary Fashion
by zclare

Comment by Oded:
nice and creative -8

Complementary Fashion
by zclare

Comment by pearlseyes:
Very clever...Well done.

Celebrate...go Topless
by zclare

Comment by bassbone:
Clare - Here is my reply to your PM asking for assistance on post processing. I really liked the image you put in this challenge. It just needed a bit of touch up to really do it justice.

A couple of things that could really help the image would be to adjust the levels of light in your image and potentially adjust the hue of the image due to the flash.

You can find the levels under Enhancements/Adjustments in Photoshop. If you open up levels, you will see a histogram (a graph) that shows the exposure in a graphical format. On the left of the graph is the amount of 'black' in the image and the right side has the amount of 'white' in the image. By moving the sliders under the graph (the arrows) you can quickly adjust the exposure of the image that is displayed to the view.

Here's the original histogram:


If you notice, there is no information at the right (white) side of the image. By moving the white slider to the left, the whites in the man's shirt start to shine more.

Another approach that works really well are to use the 'eyedroppers' on the histogram dialogue box (lower right portion). By clicking on the white dropper and then clicking on the whitest portion of the image once - you automatically set the whites. Then select the black eye dropper and do the same for the blacks (the background in your case). Finally, you can select on the grey (midtone) eyedropper and then select a mid point of the image. WHat you will see is that by clicking on different 'grey' or mid-tone portions of the image, the white balance (overall hue) of the image will change. By doing this trial and error approach, you can then make it look the way you want.

It is a small step that can make all the difference.

Here is the 'edit' I did by adjusting levels, adding a bit of unsharp mask (USM), and adjusting the hue/saturation of the yellows and reds a bit. Also, I did a bit of cropping - i agree with at least one other commenters view on cropping out a bit more of the arms/ sleeves. Show the spray - that is the cool part - and the sleeves detract from it a bit.



Good luck!

Peter

Message edited by author 2007-11-21 10:08:30.