Week #3: Digital Darkroom

Original Image

ROAD MAP:
-emphasize main leaves
     -brighten main leaves
-more green saturation
-intensify shining light with more color
-black and white?

With this picture I felt that I didn't have to do much, just a few minor adjustments here and there to improve its overall look. Mainly I wanted to adjust the lighting and color of the main leaves. They were too bright and lacked green, so I wanted to add that element to make it stand out in the image. To do that I made a mask over the leaves, then made curve and level adjustments. Then I went through and made adjustments to all the colors in the hue and saturation. I then made a mask for the spotlight and added a bit of magenta, green, and yellow tones to make it seem more mystical. Also, due to the powerful light, I thought it would be a great black and white image because it provided many different tones and levels of brightness. I used the same layers as I did with the colored photo, emphasizing the leaves. Since I didn't necessarily have to worry about color, I was able to bring down the brightness of the background leaves and add more luminance to the main leaves. I think the dynamics of the photo make it work both with and without color.    ~~~RL