Yellow Square

[Dennis Carlyle]

I've just started getting back into photography after a few years layoff. I think the processing, technical stuff is coming back to me pretty quickly, but there are a few things I'm a little unsure about.

This image was converted to grey-scale, then "hand-painted" with Paintshop Pro 7 (which is now a pretty old program.) I've always wanted to do hand-painting, but never had much luck with good color saturation on silver prints.

Any comments are welcome, but I'm also curious about: (a) Does the first impression of this image make you think "over-done" or "over-saturated color"? (b) Does it look like I've got the sharpening amount correct for this image on the web?

Thanks

[Marko]

First off, welcome!
I like the composition of this image very much! The sharpening looks fine to me.
But to answer the question truthfully, this image does look a bit "over-done" to me. It's close, but the processing makes this look (to my eye) as more mixed media than photography. Still like it tho!

[Iguanasan]

Welcome to the forum, Dennis. I'm not sure I would have seen the shot but I'm glad you did. Nicely spotted. It does look a tad overdone to me but, like Marko, I like it!

[Dennis Carlyle]

Thanks, guys. After posting, but before the first reply posted here I suspected I knew the answer. I think the "overdone" problem may largely be in the mass of coloring in the top right portion. I'm going to see if I can remove about half of it there. It may require starting from a much earlier save. I don't mind it being obviously "mixed media," but I'm hoping less coloring top right will also improve the overall 'photographic'-ness of the image.