[PlayRaw] Christmas Cactus + Orchid

[afre (Alan)]

A follow up to [PlayRaw] Flowers Flowers Flowers!. This time a hanging Christmas Cactus.

My mother wanted me to take a picture of it and then message her ASAP! It was hanging in a not-so-easy to photograph location so she moved it to hang on a chair back (ugly right?). But because of the rush, it ended up falling! So it may look a bit tattered in the photo. Then we found a better spot. Shaky handheld but good enough for her messaging app. Oh, and I had to take out the SD card, extract the preview, crop it, email it to myself and then message her in a jiffy on my smartphone.

All licensed under by @afre.

_MG_0659.CR2 (25.3 MB)

PS This orchid has been in bloom for 2 weeks. This time I used a tripod. Still a quick snap but much better.

_MG_0666.CR2 (22.8 MB)

[stonefree (Gys Van Zyl)]

I thought the orchids one was nice to practice foreground extraction. Here’s my try with darktable, g’mic, gimp:

[chroma_ghost]

Merci a @afre for the pink nipplelings … had one of those (the first one) for quite some time… then it died, I guess everything dies. Cheers @stonefree, now BKG free … me mucho backo groundin’

 

[shreedhar (Shreedhar Inamdar)]

Ah… flowers!!
_MG_0659.jpg.out.pp3 (11.1 KB)

_MG_0666.jpg.out.pp3 (10.9 KB)

[Jean-Marc_Digne (jmdigne)]

Darktable XMP_MG_0659.CR2.xmp (6.6 KB)
and image

[afre (Alan)]

The texture of the wall isn’t distracting to the eye but it looks kind of bad in the photo.

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@stonefree The bunch already reminded me of a brain. Your rendition more so.

@chroma_ghost What am I looking at; i.e., the window and the FL/FR bars? Is there more to come?

@shreedhar Interesting how you highlighted the salient regions, which are the flowers of course.

@Jean-Marc_Digne I would have preferred a gentler and better positioned vignette.

[chroma_ghost]

you’re looking at flower’s talk: Flower Lust & Flower Revenge… too filthy 4 human ears really.
The raw penguin just released a Photoflow linear integration in the gay co-processing and as a baptism of sorts I rearranged Stimpy’s cacti.

 
Photoflow left and gimp^gmic right – tried to save a smaller gimp file but my copy of gimp’s an unapologetical racist against any scaling and/or rotating whatsoever and crashes hard his long dreamy eyelashes
_MG_0659.tif_pfi.zip (2.7 KB)

 
Final grainny pinkness fluidity meltdown inchalah (another word) herpes

 
All good, hope your back is back ,-)

[age]

RT and gimp

[msd]

Nice shots @afre!
My play with the second one

darktable: _MG_0666.CR2.xmp (8.2 KB)

Nothing fancy. I just tried some dodging and burning to make the orchid pop.

[afre (Alan)]

@chroma_ghost Good crop. Has the right negative space.

@age Happy warm colors, though I wish the green stems weren’t so colorful.

@msd Excellent dodge and burn. The flowers are so pretty now. However, I am not a fan of the rotation.

[Thanatomanic (Roel)]

Those are some really nice orchids. Pretty and pink. I took a slightly cooler approach (darktable), and adjusted the lighting conditions a little with two graduated filters.

_MG_0666.CR2.xmp (28.2 KB)

[afre (Alan)]

@Thanatomanic Welcome to the forum! I didn’t take into account of the lighting or improve it when photographing, so your entry is an example of what could have been.

[chroma_ghost]

@afre the orcs are bleeding to the negative space… I bet they’re Brook followers

[msd]

@afre

However, I am not a fan of the rotation.

I see. I rotated it to make the pot straight but now the background is not straight.

[afre (Alan)]

@chroma_ghost Unsure of your references (viz., Brook).

@msd Some perspective correction is required as well because

1. The pot was not level to begin with.
2. The camera was positioned below and to the left of the subject.

[Kane_Davis]

Maybe a bit overexposed (yes, out of gamut) but I like this anyway. Nice image — thx afre.

Played with some subtract blending, low opacity, to darken background. _MG_0666.CR2.xmp (9.7 KB)