Ideas for PP on a wet rosebud

Dawn F.

Dawn F.

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Dawn
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Hello, I recently took this photo at the local rose garden right after the sprinklers stopped spraying. I really like the look of the flower, but trying to process the thing is driving me crazy. The red seems to be too red, and if I try to tone it down, it stops resembling a flower and looks a bit too abstract for my taste. I have only been using a DSLR for a little less than a month, and am still learning the whole post processing thing. If anyone has any ideas on how I might make this photo a bit better, please chime in. Thank you! (I use Adobe Raw to import it into Adobe Elements).

IMG_0680RS by dawnfaircloth74, on Flickr
 
I would start my reducing the highlights and whites sliders (does ACR have both in elements) you may also drop the overall exposure and up the shadows too.

The aim is to balance out the contrast.
 
View attachment 18790
alfbranch said:
I would start my reducing the highlights and whites sliders (does ACR have both in elements) you may also drop the overall exposure and up the shadows too. The aim is to balance out the contrast.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. Here is another go at it. I dropped exposure, upped shadows, and dropped highlights. I'm not sure if it is much of an improvement. :(
Perhaps I should stay away from water coated items until I get a bit more experience under my belt.
 
To be honest Dawn, I think you will find it difficult to process this one effectively. I think the lighting is just a bit too harsh, and there is too much contrast. Looking at the histogram it is clipping a lot of highlights to the right (overexposure) but also clipping some colour to the left.

Trying to balance the reds of bright flowers is really difficult. If you desaturate too much, it ends up looking dull and pink. It may be worth adding a black and white layer and reducing the opacity right down (below ten) to try and knock back some of the vibrancy, but I often struggle with getting a good result with bright red flowers. Again softer light will help considerably here.

My advice would be to move on from this one. Go back when the sky is a bit cloudier, or take your own diffuser to help reduce the bright sun. You can even take your own water spray (add a few drops of glycerine to make the drops hold better) if you like the sprinkler effect. That way you can control the conditions and I'm sure you will end up with much more pleasing results.
 
think the biggest difficulty here is theres to much water on it so makes it just about impossible to get the balance right as the flower is oversaturated with droplets almost rendering it impossible to identify as said above worth trying it again on a rose adding your own water droplets
 
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