Originally posted by Kronus:
any ideas on how to improve this shot, It is my favorite but it lacks something? |
That's a very nice shot, and any changes made to it must be done carefully. But if it has a weakness, it may be in the values of the darker part of the flowers. Here's an interesting comparison:
I started by making a duplicate layer from the BG, then I did contrast masking with the two layers set at screen and multiply, 100% each. This created a much flatter rendition with full tonal values in the dark areas.
Then I merged the masking layers into the duplicate BG layer. Next I created a shadow mask (half the contrast masking set, the one for the darker values) and set that to "vivid light" mode, bringing back contrast and pop to the image. The first version has that last layer set at 50% opacity, the second version at 100% opacity.
NO hue/sat, selective color, sharpening, or anything else was used here; just the dance of the luminance levels :-) Which version appeals to you most will be subjective. Some may well prefer the original. But the process is interesting.
 
Robt.
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