A community for the cultivation, photography, and general information about cacti. Growing advice, photos of cactus in cultivation or in the wild, or other cactus-related content is all welcome.
The first pic is unedited, and here's the version I played with a bit, what do you think, is it too much?
Here's a few more, should be clear by looking at them, but unedited version first, edited one after:
1:
2:
3:
I think I might have gone overboard with the Aztekiums (first pic), but other ones look kinda nice to me. Still a lot to learn though, one day I might be able to show how pretty these are in real life!
a small tip from someone that has been at this for a while.
watch your highlights when you're pushing the contrast. you have some very delicate texture and detail in the whites on those plans the you don't want to lose. try pushing your highlights and shadows separately, if you aren't, instead of using the contrast slider. that way you can push the shadows down more than you push the highlights up. creating the same amount of contrast while preserving the highlights.
of course, the same can an be said in reverse for shadows. it's all a balancing act.
Great tip and good point, thank you very much! I'll definitely keep that in mind!
Came from All, I have no stakes in cacti or in photography. I guess I don't have an eye for it, but from what I can tell the only difference is that the edited versions are slightly cropped in. Taking another look now, I can actually spot a tiiiny bit of color correction too. Anything else?
The color correction that I do notice is a good change, but it's pretty much imperceptible to me without a side-by-side and actively looking for differences.
Yup, there's some color correction, de-hazing and slight sharpening going on, but that's about it. I didn't want to do too much, so they don't look artificial or AI- made, so this is just the first try. I might read up on plant photography a bit more to understand what to adjust instead of blindly stumbling around photo editing software like I'm doing now :)
they are delightful, glad they found a good home
Thank you! These are the healthy ones, but I managed to somehow murder more than a few too :(
Sometimes I'll have two of the same family cacti, using the same soil, standing literally next to each other, getting the same watering routine and all, and one will grow super strong and healthy, while the other will just die for no discernible reason :/