Help me choose an image

[Maf 32,312]

Hi everyone. I'm just editing a few photos I made, and I'd like your opinion about which edit is better. Simply vote in the poll, or perhaps suggest a different kind of edit in the comments.

 

 

 

 Image 1 (no edits)

 

 

Image 2 (slight background blur)

 

 

Image 3 (heavy background blur)

[Pyre 3,485]

Slight blur. Big blur feels too "lumpy", for lack of a better word.

[Benefactor 6,888]

Depends what you are trying to achieve.

[Bydo 20,145]

third is way better , due to the back ground images. you don't want a photo with someones laundry hanging on the line.

 

if you can do a direct shot over head going down wards . or get to the level of the plant and shoot only the items such as greens in the back grounds..

 

always make sure you don't take a photo  that make the eye wonder in another direction away from the image. keep the back ground neutral .

 

great photos

Edited August 5, 2019 by Bydo

[Adab 2,898]

Clearly, 2nd one is the best of all three. It's versatile for any purpose, but I think you could reduce the blur by a bit (in the 2nd Picture).  ;)

[Maf 32,312]

Depends what you are trying to achieve.

Just whatever looks most visually pleasing.

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I'm also leaning towards the 2nd one.

[Maf 32,312]

if you can do a direct shot over head going down wards . or get to the level of the plant and shoot only the items such as greens in the back grounds..

This is a nice shot where the whole thing is centred and not cut off, but I have a much better closeup of the flower:

 

 

 

 

[Bydo 20,145]

thats a little too close for me. my eyes are going blind by the white light

tips from experts taking photos of flowers

 

only reason .. i worked at a photo developing stores , we had one guy who took photo's of flowers in his spare time. he told me these simple tricks .. which are listed below ..( same info which are posted on line for beginners )

 

 

 

Here are 10 tips that will help you make the most of your flower photography this spring.

1. Photograph flowers on an overcast day. ...
2. Backlight will make your flowers glow. ...
3. Watch out for wind. ...
4. Get closer. ...
5. Use a reflector. ...
6. Avoid a cluttered background. ...
7. Use a shallow depth of field. ...
8. 8. Make it sharp.

9. Change your point of view 10. Focus through another flower

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Bydo

[Benefactor 6,888]

If the lily is supposed to be the subject, then I like #3. But as a good pic, #1. The background adds a little more as a whole but does not take away from the flower.

[u812ic 1,629]

I prefer the 2nd one. The 3rd one, though designed to make the flower the focal point, still makes my eye wander to the background, because my eye still wants to know what's there. In the 2nd one, my eye can wander to the background, I know what's there and now I can focus on the flower. The 1st one is still nice and I like all the colors surrounding the white one, like a frame. Because the white flower is in the foreground, my eye still focuses there.

 

FYI: Pay more attention to what's in the background of your photo. What is that center right of the bottom flower between the white flower and the pink one? I was taking photos of my Mom's gardens. I wanted to get a little better angle and took a picture of my dog pooping way in the background. Ruined a perfect photo.

[Ninja 10,468]

For me it's 101% the first one, post processed blur is a bit of a mess in most software since it looks too fake for a few reasons, primarily;

 

Blur from a real lens progressively becomes heavier the further away parts of the background are, whereas processed blur is uniform across the whole background.

 

Secondly, whatever blur algorithm used here (I'm guessing its Gaussian which was developed for noise removal and detail reduction) isn't doing a good job of mimicking lens blur at all, its taking the masked off colours of the flower and blurring the edges to the point where there is significant haloing around the edges, again not a characteristic of a real lense.

 

Haloing around the edges of the flower:

 

 

This part of the image has the same amount of blur as all other parts, when there is clearly a massive difference in depth across the whole image:

 

 

 

You might wonder why I'm comparing this to a real lense instead of just looking at what is more pleasing, reason being, personal taste and experience.

 

To the average everyday instagram user the second image would be more pleasing to their eye the same goes for objectively over saturated and over edited images, they tend to get more likes.

 

To any experienced photographer the first image will always be the best since the massive flaws I mentioned above in the second and third images immediately stand out and are nothing short of an eyesore. (this is my boat)

 

Now it's up to you to cater your image to whatever audience you want to attract.

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The whole point of background blurring is to guide the viewer's eye to the true subject of an image, here you are just distracting them to focus on the blur rather than the flower, if you want  your subject to naturally stand out you have a few options being;

 

Composition, there is always a better background when you're actually taking the photo, by changing angles slightly you can have massively different background which are naturally less 'busy' then what you may get first time. if you have a zoom lense, play around with that to get an effect called perspective compression on your background. 

 

 

Post processing, using the spot healing brush to remove the unnatural background elements, this has limited scope in most cases. (clothing etc)

 

There are of course many more but this is getting too long.

 

 

Sorry if im sounding like a photography snob, im just a bit of a nerd when it comes to this stuff

 

[Pythor 1,354]

I say slight blur.

[Maf 32,312]

1. Photograph flowers on an overcast day. ...

That's funny. I have another image of this flower which was actually taken on an overcast day, but I edited it to look more like sunlight, because overcast looked really bland.

 

Original:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited:

 

 

 

 

(and yes, I realise that the edge on the green bit looks terrible)

 

But thanks for the tips.

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The full album that I wanna print is here, in case you guys wanna check it out. There's about 10 separate objects, but some of them have different angles because I couldn't pick one, while others already have edited versions and I want opinions on how well I did with the edits and if I should do something else (or no edits at all) instead.

[AV-Gamers 1,252]

Love this pic :wub: 

 

[loginci 877]

In fact, I didn't like the image itself. But for this image, I'd prefer the second one. 

 

Nice work btw. 

[Maf 32,312]

OK, thanks for your feedback!

 

Closed.