Taken near my work. The leaves were originally a very dark green, but the b/w really beefed up the contrast between frost and dark. The texture of the leaf was also emphasized, so I went with b/w instead of color.
I did some selective sharpening and dodging to the ice crystals; I hope not too much. I also used a lot of very subtle dodging and burning here and there. Gassian blur was also used to enhance the depth of field, but only the the hintermost layer, and not very much.
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Place: 1 out of 174 Avg (all users): 7.0707 Avg (commenters): 8.7931 Avg (participants): 7.0631 Avg (non-participants): 7.0822 Views since voting: 7983 Votes: 184 Comments: 49 Favorites: 14 (view)
Thanks again, everyone, for the comments! Just for the record, I did not glue the hoar frost on! At the point of taking this shot, the temperature had not risen over 5 degrees in over three weeks. It was chilly, but makes for interesting frosty images.
Wow! I didn't think this would happen! I paid a price for the nice tones here. It was quite darkish, and shot in the shade to boot, which made some nice shades happen--but the ice crystals lost their clarity and sharpness. These leaves were already quite dark, and with the channel mixer, I converted to b/w. Some of you also noted the digital noise in the form of squares in the lower left--this was due to gaussian blur, but it only took a little! I probably should have left it alone. There were a lot of high quality images during this challenge; I feel really lucky to have won another ribbon. I thought it would be much higher scoring. I just keep learning from you all. Thanks for the votes!
I really like the composition and the subject matter. The frost on the tips of the leaf add interest, depth and a detail to an already intricate subject. Black and white was the perfect choice, great work!
I love the shapes here... the contrast is beautiful... excellent work :) -btw, I would love to hear about how you achieve this excellent tonal range in your photo :)
Wow! I actually said that outloud when I saw this for the first time. One of my favs. Original, great use of b&w, well executed. 10. Great job! Good luck!
VERY sharp. I like the tones and composition. Good job! - Note: Background distortion is unfortunate, did you use Neatimage?, it exaggerates this type of distortion (from my experience).
Hoar Frost and Holly
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