This was the most eleaborate setup for a shot so far. Three different lamps were used to provide light while cancelling out the shadows. The backdrop was wrapping paper mounted to a mic stand and the wand was taped to another mic stand. The "magic" was a sparkler behing the wand held by my wife. The long exposure of each shot caused problems with keeping the shot focused, but I got an early christmas present to help with that ; )
Photoshop was quite a bit more elaborate than I usually use. First was levels and curves, then selective coloring to make the pumpkin and the vine more saturated looking. Then I created two duplicaate layers of the backround. One was used for spot editing on the pumpkin and the tip of the wand which needed to be cleaned up. The other was for for the backround, which was wrinkly, but I used a gaussian blur to smooth it out some. Then it was resize, usm, add a border, and save for web. It was fun and I really hope this does well.
Post Challenge - No more borders...I went border happy with the last couple entries, and this shot I think payed a price. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.
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Place: 20 out of 82 Avg (all users): 6.1658 Avg (commenters): 7.1111 Avg (participants): 5.9211 Avg (non-participants): 6.2236 Views since voting: 1899 Views during voting: 375 Votes: 199 Comments: 12 Favorites: 1 (view)
:) very nice clean image. Great relation to challenge and just very sharp. I might have liked a black background on this one to make the orange and the sparks pop but that is just me.
At first I rated this a 5, but just after I hit the 5 and went to the next pic I had to go back. I bumped it up to a 7. I hate the frame (and that may ahve been what initially set me off) but the concept overall is very good. The colors and sharpness are quite nice. Definietly not a 5. Sorry for the first vote.
Dang it, know that song will be in my head and I'll never get to sleep! Nice, bright, cheery image, and the sparkly wand works well to add a bit of magic.
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