Smee Again

Couple shots of Cicadas . . . the quiet underground guys who go nuts when they get up to the surface.
First image is a backlit exoskeleton. It's former owner was in a big hurry and lost a wing. Bet that put a damper on his celebration!

 
Second image is of a Cicada that stopped by on my front steps to sing for us.
 

Final image of a clover flower

 
Original image (size reduced for forum)
 
Cropping, obviously (to my taste).
Duplicated original image, cut out flower. On this layer I used "levels" adjustment to boost the black on flower. Next I used "shadows and highlights" adjustment layer to add some contrast. Finally used the "shadows and highlights" live filter to make final adjustments.
On background, simple "curves" adjustment layer.

A couple more I edited today while the internet at my home was on hiatus . . .
 
Honeysuckle from the south . . . where we know honeysuckle.

 
Red Dahlia from our garden last year.

 

It happened fifty-three years ago, and I remember it as if it was just yesterday. August 21, 1968. I was on vacation in East Berlin spending two weeks as a guest of a family whose son Michael had spent two weeks with me and my parents in Bratislava that July.
Michael and I spent the day in Potsdam, visiting Sans Souci, the palace the Emperors of Germany used to live in. We were always talking in English but on that day my German friend and I agreed we would only speak German from then on so I could practice speaking it.
In the evening we returned to Berlin. Michael knocked at the door to my room and when he came in, he started speaking in English. Deutsch! I insisted, But he said this was too important: While we were touring the Imperial Residence, Czechoslovakia, my home country, was invaded by five Warsaw Pact countries to “save us from ourselves” (as 1968 was the year we were trying to replace Communism with Socialism with a human face).
I spent the rest of my vacation glued to the radio listening to the reports of what was happening, including how Soviet tanks would just roll over students who tried to stop them, and would shot others, too. The best year of my life turned into the worst one.
To commemorate, here is Blood.cube.

Tinge of the ginge in the hair? Red-mane eddy makes it flare!
redmane-eddy.cube

How about an angry Iris . . .

Pink Day Lilly

 
Flower of a Bell Pepper plant.

Going through some images from a couple months ago, really liked these little wildflowers. Thought the bee on the far left was kind of neat as well.
Mostly used "selective color" and some dodging and burning.

 
Here is the original -- resized of course for the forum.

A visitor to our garden. Hope it decides to stay . . .
 

Here is a LUT I made way back in 2017 and have just remembered it,grk17.cube. I started a separate thread because this one does not fit the simple LUT motif of my other LUT thread.
Anyway, it essentially turns a green background black and everything else white. Then you use it as a mask, like this (the model came on the disc with a book on green screen, but the LUT is mine),

Yeah, right! Disabled, so the social services assigned me a housekeeper and other services because it is cheaper for them than paying for a nursing home.

I like the version of @AdamStanislav. And the original shot, that tell a story with those sleek and modern cars in from of building mixing past —bricks, decorations on the right building— and today's modernity —middle building.
The building verticals send to the black line of the cars.

 
To explain about the red car one, I'll give a B&W version showing why I found too much "white particles" making it difficult to read:

It makes it more a study about patterns, hightlights and reflections, making one forget the subject—the car—, so I would crop it or perhaps better (but no time for test), cut it to put it on a dark background:

Thanks to all, I'm going to take this into consideration and see how it works out next round:) Thanks again for the insights!

No, I didn't crush the blacks . . . that happened when the base was removed. Since black is the absence of color, removing the blacks removes detail.
Since one cannot add detail that has already been removed, I got as close to it as I could with what I had to work with.
Most times when I see these images they have been produced by removing through levels (the quick and dirty method). Any time you move the black level above about 8% you completely lose at least one of the zones that Ansel Adams and others found so necessary to achieve perfect (or as near as possible with what they had) images he is so famous for.
By compressing the color, you are the one removing details. However, that being said, if your customer likes images like that -- and pays for them -- then as I told one of my webdesign customers when he wanted me to remove someone from a group photo instead of re-shooting, "the customer's always right." Looks like crap, but as long as he pays who am I to criticize. On the other hand, those images just moved his site off my featured list on my company page.
First image has only 9 zones. You can't bring back what isn't there. Try if you wish. Second image is all 11 zones (0-10 for those not sure). You can never make first image match second in detail in black areas . . . or white areas (I chopped both ends - which seems to be so popular today.
Not some of my better work, but thought it would be a decent example to show what I"m talking about. (Toyota let me keep my rejects, and this one wasn't properly lit and had luminance noise as well as being shot with a Nikon 340L but works for what I was trying to show)

Not much time this evening, but here is my edit of your image. A bit too much sky reflection on the subjects . . . try a polarizing filter (around $25 @ B & H camera and video) which is what I used to use in the old film days.
Perhaps not to the tastes of your customer, but a quick and dirty mask and my daughter really loved the 4:1 crop on this. Don't know what's wrong with her, but she likes the new Camaros, but as I said everyone has their own bellybutton different from everyone else's. Myself, I would much rather a Hellcat Challenger or something like my old 1968 Road Runner. Modern Camaros remind me of a grinning possum, butt ugly -- again, my opinion.
Just a 63 year old man with waning eyesight.
See what you think. Nice image you took, but these are the changes I would make if I had taken it.
 

No, I didn't crush the blacks . . . that happened when the base was removed. Since black is the absence of color, removing the blacks removes detail.
Since one cannot add detail that has already been removed, I got as close to it as I could with what I had to work with.
Most times when I see these images they have been produced by removing through levels (the quick and dirty method). Any time you move the black level above about 8% you completely lose at least one of the zones that Ansel Adams and others found so necessary to achieve perfect (or as near as possible with what they had) images he is so famous for.
By compressing the color, you are the one removing details. However, that being said, if your customer likes images like that -- and pays for them -- then as I told one of my webdesign customers when he wanted me to remove someone from a group photo instead of re-shooting, "the customer's always right." Looks like crap, but as long as he pays who am I to criticize. On the other hand, those images just moved his site off my featured list on my company page.
First image has only 9 zones. You can't bring back what isn't there. Try if you wish. Second image is all 11 zones (0-10 for those not sure). You can never make first image match second in detail in black areas . . . or white areas (I chopped both ends - which seems to be so popular today.
Not some of my better work, but thought it would be a decent example to show what I"m talking about. (Toyota let me keep my rejects, and this one wasn't properly lit and had luminance noise as well as being shot with a Nikon 340L but works for what I was trying to show)

As I said, and I'll repeat again: BELLYBUTTONS - everybody's got one
WARNING: PERSONAL OPINION FOLLOWS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
In my opinion, the cars are an afterthought in the photo. They have been pushed aside when they should be the stars rather than being pushed down by 3 boring buildings (wonder how fast they go?) that likely are over half a century old and  definitely not very photogenic -- especially as composed (bellybuttons). To each his own.
As for the second image, the HDR effect (as I originally said) really detracts from the image. It also looks like there may be a bit of an "orton effect" added which totally blows the shiny parts out of the water and ruins the image.
 
 

As I said, and I'll repeat again: BELLYBUTTONS - everybody's got one
WARNING: PERSONAL OPINION FOLLOWS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
In my opinion, the cars are an afterthought in the photo. They have been pushed aside when they should be the stars rather than being pushed down by 3 boring buildings (wonder how fast they go?) that likely are over half a century old and  definitely not very photogenic -- especially as composed (bellybuttons). To each his own.
As for the second image, the HDR effect (as I originally said) really detracts from the image. It also looks like there may be a bit of an "orton effect" added which totally blows the shiny parts out of the water and ruins the image.
 
 

Not much time this evening, but here is my edit of your image. A bit too much sky reflection on the subjects . . . try a polarizing filter (around $25 @ B & H camera and video) which is what I used to use in the old film days.
Perhaps not to the tastes of your customer, but a quick and dirty mask and my daughter really loved the 4:1 crop on this. Don't know what's wrong with her, but she likes the new Camaros, but as I said everyone has their own bellybutton different from everyone else's. Myself, I would much rather a Hellcat Challenger or something like my old 1968 Road Runner. Modern Camaros remind me of a grinning possum, butt ugly -- again, my opinion.
Just a 63 year old man with waning eyesight.
See what you think. Nice image you took, but these are the changes I would make if I had taken it.
 

No, I didn't crush the blacks . . . that happened when the base was removed. Since black is the absence of color, removing the blacks removes detail.
Since one cannot add detail that has already been removed, I got as close to it as I could with what I had to work with.
Most times when I see these images they have been produced by removing through levels (the quick and dirty method). Any time you move the black level above about 8% you completely lose at least one of the zones that Ansel Adams and others found so necessary to achieve perfect (or as near as possible with what they had) images he is so famous for.
By compressing the color, you are the one removing details. However, that being said, if your customer likes images like that -- and pays for them -- then as I told one of my webdesign customers when he wanted me to remove someone from a group photo instead of re-shooting, "the customer's always right." Looks like crap, but as long as he pays who am I to criticize. On the other hand, those images just moved his site off my featured list on my company page.
First image has only 9 zones. You can't bring back what isn't there. Try if you wish. Second image is all 11 zones (0-10 for those not sure). You can never make first image match second in detail in black areas . . . or white areas (I chopped both ends - which seems to be so popular today.
Not some of my better work, but thought it would be a decent example to show what I"m talking about. (Toyota let me keep my rejects, and this one wasn't properly lit and had luminance noise as well as being shot with a Nikon 340L but works for what I was trying to show)

Well, your perspective it what you know:) I get what you're saying though. I will have to brag on the last one a bit because essentially it all comes down to the viewer and in this case, Adam Barry liked the image, he's the creative designer for the Camaro as shown here:)  I will try the cropping ration also, I typically use the full frame in body and just crop as my eye sees fit during editing.

I used to never mute the colors and it seems that they end up looking over saturated to me personally so I make sure to keep the tones sort of just neutral now.  It probably also has to do with my body setup, I often create videos and always capture on a neutral white balance and so on.  Thank you for the feedback!

so to me, you crushed the blacks and now there's less details there.  I tried passing work similar to what you've done here over to some magazine editors and their response was basically the same, too rendered, not clean.  I guess that has caused me to change my output overtime.  I also have habits from my portraiture work that cross over into the auto stuff too.  Thanks again for the feedback, greatly appreciated.

Feel free to play with this RAW file if you want.  I'm curious to see what everyone else will make of it:) It's the capture of the two Camaros with the cityscape background.  Please post it here so we can view it!
IMG_9764.CR3

As someone who enjoys American Muscle cars as well as classics, I like these images. Some of the angles I would have shot differently, but overall I like your work.
Just a personal preference, I get thrown a curve when folks mute all the colors as was done in the last image. I would have cropped to a 1:3 ratio and made sure the colors came through.
What do I know? Not much.