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Pepper #33
Pepper #33
GeneralE


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Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Famous Photograph (Advanced Editing VII)
Collection: Portfolio
Camera: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Location: Oakland, California, USA
Date: Jun 12, 2010
Aperture: 8.0
ISO: 80
Shutter: 1 second
Galleries: Still Life, Black and White
Date Uploaded: Jun 12, 2010

 "After" Edward Weston's Pepper #30 (1930) ... mine happened to have Image #1333 as the final in the series of bracketed exposures used to assemble an HDR-rendered "original" to edit.

Weston's version is considerably darker than I originally intended to make mine, and I couldn't get it as dark as his without what I considered unacceptable blocking-in of those shadow details I went to all the trouble of HDR exposing/processing to capture. A lighter/HDR version linked below.

Besides cutting a tiny sliver off the bottom of the pepper, I used a small glob of peanut butter en lieu of modeling clay to help hold the pepper steady. Light was almost directly above, and slightly behind and to the left.

Alternate title: Ecstasy in Limbo

-Plastic grocery bag over swing-arm lamp to act as diffuser for CFL bulb
-Custom White Balance
-Tripod, timer, piece of white paper to the left to act as a weak reflector
-Manual mode, manual focus
-Focal Length: 242mm (35mm equivalent)
-Resize bracketed originals
-Merge bracketed originals using EnfuseGUI
-RGB Curve
-RGB Curve 2
-Create vignetted mask for background
-RGB Curve through mask to create slight nimbus (aura) effect
-Red Channel Curve
-RGB + Red Channel Curve
-Channel Mixer -> Monochrome
-RGB Curve
-Crop a bit from top and right
-Clone out speck below plate-edge reflection
-Some local dodging/burning along top of pepper
-USM at 8%/64 dia/TH = 0 (applied twice)
-USM at 88%/0.8 dia/TH = 7 (applied three times)
-Some local blurring to clear up sharpening artifacts
-SaveAs JPEG at quality 10/10 = 75KB

File: Pepper33_img_1329-33HDR=DPC3rt.jpg

Resized originals:


Setup:

Alternate edit:

Statistics
Place: 66 out of 92
Avg (all users): 5.2276
Avg (commenters): 6.8333
Avg (participants): 5.2000
Avg (non-participants): 5.2400
Views since voting: 1712
Views during voting: 335
Votes: 145
Comments: 8
Favorites: 0

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AuthorThread
 04/29/2013 06:53:24 PM
Say, that's pretty good. Nice shape and well illuminated.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
06/20/2010 06:14:45 PM
Great shape/form but very blotchy. I'm guessing you pushed the contrast too much in PP. 4
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/20/2010 06:35:27 AM
Nice but watch your gradient. There's some very noticeable banding on the pepper.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/19/2010 11:01:24 PM
A sensual pepper you got yourself here. Hope I'm not too much over the top by imagining a mother breast-feeding her baby. Thanks for sharing.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/15/2010 02:02:56 PM
Lighting not quite there. This looks much more translucent than Weston's
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/14/2010 04:44:43 PM
Excellent.. An Edward Weston.. This is good, damn good.. 10..
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/14/2010 07:18:57 AM
nice take, but the lighting is a bit dim, 6
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/13/2010 08:44:47 PM
really like what you did but the quality of the jpg file really lets you down.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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