# Air ferns



## silentrunning (Feb 15, 2007)

Myaaka River, Florida


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## abraxas (Feb 17, 2007)

So that's cool.


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## silentrunning (Feb 17, 2007)

Thanks for the comment. I thought this turned out quite well, but there has been no interest in it. Any suggestions how I can put more "kick" in it?


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## 1986 (Feb 17, 2007)

i like it...maybe try photoshop and do something with it i cant think of any thing off teh top of my head


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## abraxas (Feb 17, 2007)

Maybe try some adjusting the brightness and contrast.  Levels and curves too if you have photoshop. Looks like a good shot to learn with.

Reaction?

Well, strategies I'm considering are either becoming a really good photographer, like some I see here or changing my screen name to TinyBambi, CrazyBabe or ReallyHotChick.

I'll probably stick to the first plan. Takes more patience and concentration, but I gotta be me.

Is that some kind of parasite?


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## abraxas (Feb 17, 2007)

I was just thinking, "Gidget" might be a cool screen name too.


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## LaFoto (Feb 18, 2007)

There is more in this photo than meets the eye just now.
Colours and hightlights/shadows are a bit flat right now. Only tiny adjustments in Photoshop can make this "pop" more, I am sure (and was thinking the same yesterday, when I first looked at it, but yesterday I had for some odd reason fallen out of "commenting-mode", this happens to me occasionally). May I play with the photo just a little?


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## LaFoto (Feb 18, 2007)

And hey, Walter: I really like "abraxas" for a screen name. It is the name of a witch, though, so I had to adjust to the fact that you are male at first. Thought you were ... erm :er: ...  ... a _witch_ at first. :mrgreen:


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## abraxas (Feb 18, 2007)

I had played with the levels and curves a bit, but didn't repost. With a bit cropped off the top and a bit more off the left I thought it made it very good.



LaFoto said:


> And hey, Walter: I really like "abraxas" for a screen name. It is the name of a witch, though, so I had to adjust to the fact that you are male at first. Thought you were ... erm :er: ...  ... a _witch_ at first. :mrgreen:



I didn't know that about the witch.

I picked the name because of the Santana album, which I've liked since high school.

_Funny story_;
About a dozen years ago when I figured out I wasn't suitable to work for people and I had to start my own company, I looked up the name; it meant, 'A very old word without meaning, nothing, a cool looking word used on jewelry.'

I thought I always wanted to do 'nothing' for a living- So I came up with the following;

*Abraxas *(nothing) *Engineering* (structured thought) *Virtual *(dynamic nothing) *Environments* (enclosed in more nothing).

It worked out into a four letter domain name, which in '96 some were still available (AEVE.COM), which over the years I developed into pretty much ... nothing.  For the two years before that I developed electronic base maps for local GIS systems. I liked drawing the maps, and it was all on the computer, so it was like making a living doing- nothing.

To this day I have not produced a tangible product.

Favorite song- Money for _Nothing_ - Dire Straits

I have studied early historic desert cultures.  When an Indian died, their relatives were not allowed to say their name, as this would mean they wanted them back, and if everyone came back, there would be no room for the new people.  They'd throw the body and all of their possessions in a pile and burn it all.  'Abraxas' falls into this for me- with the exception of never saying my name (Walter) again.  In fact, I have specified 'Wailing women' at my funeral- Hair-pulling, dirt-slinging, crying and screaming women dressed in black. Throw what little is left of me and my ~work~ in a pile and burn it all. If it's not affordable, throw my carcass in the back of a pickup truck and spin a few doughnuts in the dirt lot in back of a liquor store until I fall out. However, I must have the wailing women.

I seem to have gotten off track. What was my point?- Oh yeah;

Middle-aged male, unproductive, increasingly becoming overweight, innocence and optimism scarred and damaged over a half a century by this brutal earth, problematic for sure, but not a witch.

I like this shot though- and if possible would like to know more about the plant and its seemingly symbiotic relationship with the host.


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## silentrunning (Feb 18, 2007)

Please work with it all you want and feel free to post. I am here to learn and since I am a total newbie, anything will help.


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## LaFoto (Feb 18, 2007)

Thanks, it looked a tad pale in colours and contrasts and I knew there was more there, it only has to be lured to show:






I used the Channel Mixer in the Layers at 50% opacity to use the "Soft Glow" effect on it. While at it I shifted the colours to 60% red, 60% yellow and -20% blue.

Then I applied another layer at 50% to tweaking the levels just a tiny, tiny bit in the shadows (up to 6 or 8, I no longer remember). 

And lastly I applied a third layer, again at 50% opacity, to further up the reds and yellows a bit. 

Do you think it "pops" more?
Do you feel I did too much?


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## abraxas (Feb 18, 2007)

I tried a crop to remove the blurry branch, and slightly messed with levels, curves added a bit of saturation and sharpened.


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## silentrunning (Feb 18, 2007)

Thanks for the help. I like both pictures. They both look crisper. I notice that both of them seem to darken the shadows on the tree bark. I pushed the light to show the detail of the bark. Should I be going for more greens and blues and worry less about detail lost in shadows? Sorry for silly questions, but I want my pictures to look their best.


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