I worked so hard on this. First, I put the garlic on a white box. Very creative! I used a floor lamp, plus a hand that I hel in my hand to paint with light. I put my sexy macro lens on the tripod and took the picture.
Now for PP. I used a gradient layer to make it really bright and make the white background really white. Then I masked the gradient layer where the onion was, so the onion would be darker (look at the edge of the onion to see how tricky that might be). Hue/sat and selective color made the onion brighter and less yellow. Then I resized and sharpened, only to see some noise and gradients in the shadows. So now I had to mask out the sharpening! I was still seeing some "rings" in one of the shadows, so I used water blur to smoothe that out. Now I'm exhausted. Just leave my ribbon on the coffee table. I'm going to take a snooze.
I should really call this picture, "Addicted to Six."
Don't worry, I'll get it over it real soon.
I know it's pointless to look at a piece of garlic, but there's something to be said about putting so much attention into displaying something properly, giving it the showcase it deserves. It's an act of caring. There is art to this.
===post challenge=====
i'm keeping my typos above as a tribute to my advancing age. thanks to eyewave for what is to him high praise.
Statistics
Place: 32 out of 178 Avg (all users): 5.9848 Avg (commenters): 7.0000 Avg (participants): 5.7742 Avg (non-participants): 6.1714 Views since voting: 1388 Views during voting: 236 Votes: 132 Comments: 13 Favorites: 1 (view)
Color Saturation and Hue: Very well done. Nothing is over saturated, and hues are appropriate for the subject, and in this case the challenge.
Brightness and contrast: Nice clean white background. The details hold well throughout, with just a hint of burnout at the highlight at the upper middle of the head of garlic.
Focus and depth of field: Focus is razor sharp, and depth of field is excellent.
Composition: The centered composition works well here. To do a rule of thirds, would have resulted in an image that was done that way than for no other reason than the rule of thirds is one of the first things taught. The almost square format, works well here also.
Subjective: The (mildew?) stains on the garlic distract a bit. I like all the detail, yet at the same time the eye has a hard time figuring out a place in which to rest. I'm wondering how a little softer focus, or perhaps a bit of glow would have worked. Maybe even a little bit of revealed garlic clove down in the right side...
Overall a very well done image, that well deserves its place in the top 40.
LOL! I'm envious - you have a white box. And you apparently have the ability to paint with light using your hand. (Actually, that's not all that suprising.) Very nice for the challenge, got a Chromey, JUST missed that 6 (nasty vote scrubber!). A very nice clove of garlic, but I prefer your onion, the one not sitting in a perfectly lovely plain white background.
Haha, I love the title and I think this works really well for the challenge. Normally I'm not a fan of shadows like that, but I think it helps to define the shape of the subject here.
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