dark lotus by richard seah
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This dark lotus flower picture is, for me, a classic example of how a so-so, below average photograph can sometimes be transformed into something quite spectacular – with just a bit of simple, Photoshop adjustments.
The key word is "sometimes". It is not always possible to turn a below average photograph into a good or even great photograph.
At least, you cannot do so without "cheating" – modifying it so extensively that it no longer resembles the original.
The most important element, I feel, is composition. And, of course, the subject matter. If the picture has a good subject and is well composed, at least you have something to work with. Lighting, colors, etc can be adjusted.
The original version of the dark lotus picture above looked like this:
It was really nothing much to look at. The lighting was ordinary, my exposure was ordinary... everything was very ordinary, quite far from the dark lotus flower above.
If someone else were to show me this picture, my reaction would be: So what? What's the big deal? Why show it to me?
But because it was my own photograph, I looked at it differently. I saw some potential and, instead of asking "So what?", I thought to myself, "Let's see what happens if I adjust it a little..."
In this case, adjusting a little did not really help. I adjusted a lot. I went to Image > Adjustment > Levels and pushed the mid-tone slider quite far to the right, from 1.0 to about 0..4. But that was the only adjustment I made, so in that sense it was still a minor adjustment.
Within a matter of seconds, the image had improved dramatically. From an ordinary lotus, I had created a dark lotus:
I was still not totally satisfied with this dark lotus flower photograph, however. While it looked somewhat dramatic, there was also a certain "deadness" about it – just a lotus flower emerging from the darkness. So I decided to experiment further… The obvious thing to do was to bring out the lotus leaf at the front, to give the picture some perspective.
To do this, I had to select the leaf separately, using the magic wand tool on Photoshop. This proved somewhat problematic because the color of the leaf was too close to background. If I set a high tolerarance (40 or higher), I ended up selecting too many parts of the picture.
If I set a low tolerance, then I ended up selecting only small sections of the leaf each time – until I get to the "borderline" colors, then one more click and large sections of the photograph got selected.
It was quite tedious and frustrating, cannot remember how long I took, but finally did it. So I just darkened the leaf slightly. I also made it slightly more green, using the Image > Adjjustment > Hue / Saturation > Edit > Greens and then increasing the saturation of the Greens just slightly.
Finally, I ended up with the main dark lotus picture above. I was finally happy with it.
What happened next was quite amazing – I forgot all about this version of my dark lotus flower!
If you look at the thumbnail image I used on the "Fine art photographs for sale" page, I still used the intermediate, rather than the final, version of this image.
I was reminded of the final dark lotus flower only when I was recently searching for the image, to submit it for consideration for a coffee table book project. (Tell you more about this later, once the book is out and I know which of my pictures, if any, are used).
So while searching for the dark lotus, I stumbled upon this version and scolded myself for forgetting about it. How could I? It is so much better than the intermediate version.
Incidentally, my final dark lotus flower is not as dark as the intermediate one. That was deliberate. Sometimes better not to overdo certain things...
The above dark lotus flower photograph is available for sale. Larger prints come in very limited editions, but smaller 5R and 8R prints are made very affordable to encourage the collection of fine art photographs by those with limited budgets.
All prints, including the affordable 5R and 8R prints, are signed by me, Richard Seah.
Click here to view other fine art photographs for sale.