Thanks again Hugo, for all the valuable feeback! In fact it could be due to both scanning and my personal taste for partial pushing. Anyway, it seems to be unavoidable to invest in a better scanner - but I'll try to fix mine first.
Yes, I think that's quite an improvement, I think it balances the composition much better.
About the grain, I think in some images it can be an addition, depending on the atmosphere created... It doesn't fit with all images, I believe.
The same with B&W conversions, they're fine, but need to have a purpose. In a clean shot, such as this, I don't quite see the need for a lot of grain, but in say a dark street scene, the grain can add to the atmosphere.
I think it's very subjective, some people like grainy images, others don't care that much for it, and prefer a crisp, clean photo.
What I meant is that the grain on the right side seems to be stronger than on the left side. Just an observation, which I attributed to the scanning issue; maybe it's a part of that too, as I noticed it (a bit less pronounced, though) in the previous image too....
Quite the contrary, I welcome and appreciate all those suggestions and opinions. On the one hand they show me that the photos are observerd carefully and this makes me of course glad. On the other hand I learn so much about the possibilities and I am grateful for all these info, which I couldn't get otherwise.
I cropped a bit off the left side but I don't know how to increase saturation. How does it look now? As about the grain, this must be a particular thing about me - I find the graininess in parts of images very nice, though I have the impression that this is generally not wanted in photography. (Why? Any reason for this?)
Hi Nick, Good shot! I think if you'd crop off a bit of the left side, I think the distractions Painsama mentions are solved; it places the plant a bit more away from the center, reducing the slightly static composition.... As to the scanning, the saturation seems to be slightly lower, and there's a bit more grain visible on the right side of the image; another tell tale...Sorry to be such a pain in the but, but rest assured, I wouldn't comment if I didn't like your shots, they make me think about them, and trigger my creativity in searching for alternatives. Hope you don't mind...:)
Yes, Painsama, that's the problem for me too. It doesn't work always. And as I am a newbie, it works for me not in many cases. I lost some of the most beautiful scenes because I did something wrong.
Of course learning helps to know what one has to do and I get more and more photos as I wanted them to be, but still there are many that are completely different than what I thought they would be.
Considering the old times without PS, sometimes I feel rather "oldie" in my ways, and I wonder how it could be possible to use PS or any other software, without turning the photos to something that perhaps looks better than the original, but otherwise is something never seen as such. I assume that there are many ways to do that, but I still search.
Oh well, learning is a never ending story, isn't it?
It's good to be purist too. I myself try my best to take picture as to include my feeling when I am taking the picture at that time, but sometime it does not work, i.e. to give the very same feeling that I have while looking at the subject. No harm staying as purist :) People in the olden days took so many nice pictures even without PS, so why not people in this modern age too.
Thank you very much for the kind comment, Painsama! Considering maskings, layers, and all the PS-machinery, well, they might be as good as they want, but my attitude is that of a purist.
I play guitar using as little effects as possible, I drink coffe without milk or sugar, and so I shoot photos using only my camera. It is not that I have anything against PS or other photo software, if somebody wants to use it - not at all! But I am more convinced of the "direct" approach, because for myself I find it somehow more "honest".
I see something, shoot the picture, here it is, what you think about it - this is my view, which perhaps is too simple, but that's me.
All the above, of course, is only meant as an explanation about why I use PS as little as possible. I just like the straight forward manner, that's all!
Interesting title for this picture. And I'd say a nice picture. But somehow I find that there are some distractions to the main subject in this picture (the plant). Probably by adding some masking layer and making the corners a bit darker would help bringing up the main subject even more. And probably a bit cropping on the left would help too.
Thank you for your comments and suggestions to my pictures. I really appreciate that. My best regards :)
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