I don't know what you are talking about Keith. Your Zen Garden has a lot of appeal but that could be due to the fact that I like to play around with photo edits ( as an excuse for coming up with quality photos like yours) Your girl walking in darkness has an alluring, mystical aura.......just what a talented author is looking for as an ideal book cover for their new novel. But.......please don't make me comment on the third image. I'll quit while I am ahead. (lol)
Opinions change I guess... so much of what I did just a couple of years ago makes me cringe today.
@trudeehunter I'm still a big fan of photo editing and digital art. I just think it needs to look... searching for a technical term here... I just think it needs to look nice. You know, like the digital art that you make. I've always been a big fan of your 'art filter' images.
The problem with a lot of the stuff I did four and five years ago is that it literally hurts the eyes. Too much HDR, sharpness, clarity etc can make images so "crunchy" that they're hard to look at. I remember showing one of my photos to a new friend about five years ago. It was something I had been working on and was quite proud of at the time. So my friend takes one look at it and says "Oh, you're one of those..." He was right, I was!
I always thought that was kind of a hurtful remark because it made it personal. I was one of those... not a comment on the image, but a comment about me, understand?
The best and kindest response from him would have been something like : "Dude, are you crazy??? (Gently closes the lid of the laptop.) There's a kitten in the room, are you trying to kill it?" :)
When I think of what I used to post, I cringe too Keith but I wasn't into photography then. I have had difficulty with my laptop where the colour is quite dull and I can't adjust it. I'm inclined to overcompensate too much when editing and it is not until I see the posts on another computers or my Ipad for example that I realise I need to tone it down. Working with a small screen after our PC broke down is quite a strain on my eyes. However, we finally replaced our old PC yesterday and it is sheer luxury reading off the bigger screen and I am doing much less editing because I can see a lot better. Your friend did do you a favour but he could have been a lot more diplomatic I'm sure. I'm trying to figure out the meaning behind your kitten comment but it escapes me for the moment ........probably time I retired for the night and stopped taxing my brain. (lol)
Some HDR is so harsh that if a kitten were to glance at the screen, it would surely be killed instantly. Humans might only suffer from eye-bleeding from viewing the same image... please be kind to the kittens! (I made a lot of that sort of HDR when I first started digital photography.)
Oh.....thanks for the explanation Keith. Eye-bleeding must be avoided at all times and of course we need to protect our kittens. (lol) Restraint and patience are essential for good photographers and I think I lack in that department at times. Pity they don't sell these ingredients at department stores. lol.