Bought the tree and attached dollar bills. Took the picture in our light box with 2 50watt flood lights.
Post Processing:
One step photo fix
Auto Contrast
Bias = Darker
Strength = mild
Apprence = bold
Auto Saturation
Bias = More colorful
Strength = Normal
Brightness/Contrast
Brightness = 3
Contrast = 1
Select top dollar - Brightness/Contrast
Brightness = -20
Contrast = 5
Used clone brush to clean background imprefections
Crop
Resize
Add boarders
Save for DPC
Statistics
Place: 26 out of 151 Avg (all users): 6.0625 Avg (commenters): 7.2174 Avg (participants): 5.9762 Avg (non-participants): 6.1143 Views since voting: 1344 Views during voting: 397 Votes: 224 Comments: 24 Favorites: 0
Despite some technical flaws, this is a good photo. Creative idea, nicely set up, and well composed. The main problem with it is the lighting. A light box is an effective method for creating a shadowless white background. But the front lighting isn't strong enough here to compete with the light box, making the subject too dark and giving it a strange color cast. It also gives a flat appearance to an obviously 3-dimensional object.
I've thought about this, and if it did, it would still be a matter of how long it would take to grow it, then the rent of the guards to protect it, then the cost of fertilizers, etc.... Most bushes don't grow this big in a year, but let us just imagine that they do... I see in your photo... oh... about $25 now if it took a year to grow that $25, why just think, in only 320 years or so, you'd have enough for that big Canon EOS 1DS-Mark II... :-) Seriously though great idea, good implementation. A little better lighting to really set off the money, instead of the dark hole in the middle of the picture that sort of swallows the idea would really help. 5
A money tree fits a fantasy world concept in a way anyone can relate to. Sharpness is good and the choice of a white background works very well.
There are a couple technical items that will hurt this image in scoring. One is that the background is not solid white. Some 'dirtiness' shows through that will be a distraction for some viewers.
There are some digital 'jaggies' that show up prominently on the edges of the dollars on the tree. These are also distracting and should be corrected.
The biggest flaw is lighting. The tree needs some front illumination. It is too dark in the center and it is made more apparent when contrasted to the white background.
There is something you might try in post processing without reshooting that might work well with this image for this particular challenge. You could apply dodging to lighten various areas in the darkened interior of the tree to give it a more surreal look and added viewer interest. But you have to be careful not to overdo it. It is very easy to lighten to much and give the image a washed out look. I'd recomment a brush opacity of around 5% or maybe a little more and make broad circular strokes.
Great picture well executed. I think that it would have been better balanced with another six or eight inches of the stem. It would then look more like a money tree than a money ball.
Apart from a rather bothersome overall colour cast and/or over saturation, I just love this photo!
Great idea! The centered composition and plain background work well.
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