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Yellow Jacket
Yellow Jacket
Rebecca


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Pastels (Advanced Editing IV)
Camera: Nikon Coolpix 5400
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
Date: Sep 3, 2006
Galleries: Candid, Children
Date Uploaded: Sep 2, 2006

 Caught Miss Serendipity at a hot air balloon event. Her unsure "Am I lost?" expression is most of why I chose to slide this a bit toward a grunge feel, figuring it would enhance that emotion, but also because it was a very cloudy day with unusually cold light. The flowers on the balloon behind her are the icing on the cake for providing a somewhat disturbing, blind and false cheer.

Other than some basic tweaks to levels and curves, the major process on this was to vastly desat the yellow channel and bump the saturation on the red channel up.

Convert from RAW
Crop
Neat Image
Levels
Hue/Saturation
Curves
Color Balance
Brightness/Contrast
Burn
Cloned wrinkle & spot
Resize
USM
Save for Web

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Had a feeling the grunging wouldn't go over well, despite the -50ish desat, but the Neat Image comments - the NI was really just applied lightly to the balloon. The girl's very smooth appearance is more due to the rescue of a slight overexposure than to any noise reduction. And the plastic look of the coat? I'm not sure it wasn't a rain jacket, since it had been a rather rainy weekend and that morning had the look as well. I didn't process out the coat detail, I processed it in. This challenge was most notable, for me, in the assumptions that people made about the processing details. I found all the misconceptions disappointing, but amusing in just how completely wrong nearly everyone got it.

Here's an untouched version of the same crop from the original - see for yourself:


By the way, this is the same balloon in the background of Cutter's 9th place finisher. Two photographers, two wild differing visions. Heh.

Statistics
Place: 149 out of 203
Avg (all users): 5.1484
Avg (commenters): 6.0000
Avg (participants): 5.1212
Avg (non-participants): 5.1638
Views since voting: 971
Views during voting: 279
Votes: 182
Comments: 9
Favorites: 1 (view)

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AuthorThread
Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT
 09/18/2006 04:29:22 PM
I really like where you placed the girl. It is a great shot and I love the grunge... (Edit for spelling)

Message edited by author 2006-09-18 16:30:18.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-40D
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II
 09/11/2006 09:59:18 AM
I loved your 50s effect. The pastels were on the girl herself. The balloon has pastel colors but they are darkened. This creates a wonderful, suspenseful effect... ominous... which matches her expression. I gave this a 9.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
Olympus PEN E-PL2
Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 M.Zuiko Digital
09/08/2006 11:03:40 AM
this is immensly likeable in most respects, but does suffer a wee bit due to a bit of over processing (either too much noise reduction, or too much over sharpehing, or probably both). it has the unfortunate effect that the girl looks like a very flat cardboard cut out stuck in front of whatever the background is. compositionwise it's great; the negative space is really effective and visually pleasing and intriguing. the posture, expression and character of the girl is really cool and has a sense of candid realness which feels natural. the background is really funky and fun, complements the girls jacket and hair really well. as a whole, this image works asthetically well, and has a great sense of scale. i'd say it half meets the challenge; the jacket seems merely incidentally pastel, and the background is too mustard to really count. overall, i give it 7.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/04/2006 03:52:37 PM
Image has a dark feel to it in spite of the yellows. It also looks as if you used too much neat image because the girl's face and coat have lost a lot of detail and look fake and plastic.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Fujifilm FinePix S5200Z
 09/04/2006 10:24:59 AM
Nice shading
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Olympus E-500 EVOLT
Olympus 40-150mm f/3.5-4.5 Zuiko Digital
 09/04/2006 04:38:20 AM
The model looks a little too processed
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT
Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II
 09/04/2006 03:28:04 AM
love this!! wondeful composition! 8
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D800
Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
 09/04/2006 02:13:53 AM
I love this image...I am not sure but it looks like you used neat image on this or something as her face looks processed...that aspect is the only thing that spoils this...well done 8
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon PowerShot SD200
 09/04/2006 01:35:39 AM
a little too dark, but excellent composition
  Photographer found comment helpful.
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