Duplicate layer, multiply mode with a mas and gradient to even up the exposure on the red and the back half of the triangle.
Curves to bring up the red
Shadow filter to deepen the shadows
Duplicate background layer again, gaussian blur to soften the ribbon. Apply mask to this layer and bring balls back into sharp focus. Set layer transparency to 50%
Hue and saturation, to move the ribbon to a little more cyan and to bring up the reds again
Dodge and burn to remove some obvious shadows on bottom part of ribbon and to even up the ball tones.
Resize to 640 on longest edge
Sharpen
File Name
CRW_1402.CRW
Camera Model Name
Canon EOS 10D
Shooting Date/Time
29/01/2005 17:52:30
Shooting Mode
Manual
Tv( Shutter Speed )
1/60
Av( Aperture Value )
22
Metering Mode
Evaluative
ISO Speed
100
Lens
50.0mm
Focal Length
50.0mm
Image Size
3072x2048
Image Quality
RAW
Flash
On
Flash Type
External E-TTL
Flash Exposure Compensation
-1/2
Red-eye Reduction
On
Shutter curtain sync
1st-curtain sync
White Balance
Auto
AF Mode
Manual Focus
Parameters
Contrast Normal
Sharpness Normal
Color saturation Normal
Color tone Normal
Color Space
Adobe RGB
File Size
4735KB
Statistics
Place: 51 out of 266 Avg (all users): 5.9548 Avg (commenters): 7.5000 Avg (participants): 5.7769 Avg (non-participants): 6.1700 Views since voting: 1097 Views during voting: 325 Votes: 221 Comments: 11 Favorites: 1 (view)
Almost, almost very beautiful. I think you've restricted the graduations of light too much for this to be really effective - the highlights are blown, and the transitions into the black areas seem to happen pretty quickly, especially toward the bottom of frame. A little more care in the organisations of the balls, to prevent the seams showing, would have added a touch more neatness too. It could I think, have been a very beautiful shot, but needed a bit more care and attention to the finest level of detail and composition/organisation of elements.
I see you have had the same problem as I had , trying to get red lit objects to focus in low light photos (more edge definition of red lit objects than focus) you would have had better luck with green or blue
that aside I like this photo,
nice curves and lighting levels + 7
Very nicely arranged and lit. Just goes to show what you can achieve with some ping pong balls, a lengrh of ribbon and a good imagination (along with some photog skills of course).
The only thing I don't like is that distraction in the bottom right. I don't understand why you didn\t clone that out. Gets my 8, would be a 9 without that/
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