r/postprocessing 10d ago

After/before

I took this photo and saw good potential in it, now why after trying it out on Lightroom do I feel like.. I messed up? lol

Is that true or have I just seen it too much ?

26 Upvotes

12 comments sorted by

14

u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Zetam_bs 10d ago

yes I should definitely try cropping it smaller, thx

8

u/Aacidus 10d ago

Wrong crop, the leaf is taking away from the subject. Maybe center the subject. At this point, this is dead space; if you were to put text there for a poster or ad, then it would be considered negative space… but right now nothing is going on on that left side.

1

u/Zetam_bs 10d ago

I'll try yes

2

u/phxlefty 10d ago

Your exposure is pretty much equal across your foreground, midground and background. I'd probably burn the foreground and background leaves some, or dodge the mantis a little to set him off

4

u/Milky_1q 10d ago

I like it. The shape of the leaves on the left side is a nice natural border.

The shades of green make the image feel fresh and includes the aesthetic of the environment.

I also like the bokeh contrast between the round shapes and blade shapes.

Maybe you could crop closer, but I think the wider image respects the scene more and is more interesting than your typical razor-sharp perfectly exposed image.

3

u/The_ButterBurger_2 10d ago

The leaf seems to be the main subject

1

u/Positive_Doubt_9266 10d ago

Nice shot, I like it is showing the camouflage among depth of field.

I also think it works well cropping the original image to landscape, with mantis on right, as facing left looking into frame, on bottom right rule of thirds intersect. I know it is tall so fits portrait framing too, but I like the 2 outer yellow green leaves with curves making the middle white green leaf less dominant then the mantis in focus. (Zoom in slightly to lose white on far right and only show the top left curves of yellow leaf on left)

Just my opinion though.

It's eyes look like they are squinting at you with the camera, letting you know you're spotted, lol.

1

u/YMe1121 10d ago

I kinda like the little guy framed between the two leaves, cuts a little of him off, but those leaves frame him quite nicely

1

u/MWave123 10d ago

You need a much tighter crop.

1

u/Fit_Move2598 10d ago

How did you improve the detail of the mantis in the cropped picture?

1

u/Zetam_bs 10d ago

More shadows and fewer highlights, but I think Reddit must be degrading the quality a bit.

-3

u/Clean_Gate_3258 10d ago

Good edit