Twinkles of Life

I like you composition and subject Youssef. In this instance, your logo and such really blocks the view. I went to your web-site to hopefully see this image without but couldn't find it. I think overall it is a fine image and not too busy.
Bob

I am not too sure it is working for me, either. I am finding it busy, with my eye wandering all over it in search of somewhere to stop.

Youssef,

Not feeling the love with this one. I do think the b&w does well to separate the dogwood blooms against the rest of the scene. I'm guessing the color comes across as busy? Only guessing. The dogwood is beautiful when it's in bloom, but I've found it quite difficult to capture the whole tree successfully.

Lon

I like the idea of this image Youssef, but it's a bit too busy for my taste. Nice details in the larger version though. The only way I can see to make it work would be to crop a bunch off the top.

Can't quite decide... It's a pretty cool image, with interesting lighting (I do love the illuminated blooms), but it may be a bit hard on my eyes!

I find as a b&w it's difficult to distinguish between the tree and the background. I think it's this lack of tonal isolation of the tree that makes it look quite busy. The high contrast lighting probably isn't helping with that either. Even so, I quite like the water action going on at the bottom and the way the dark buds are defined against the white water. Would liked to have seen the color version for comparison

The conversion is not working for me, but I'm not sure it's the image or how it was "printed". If there was more separation in the dark areas of the dogwood branches and the background, I think this would be a lot more interesting, but as it is, it's too muddy.

As someone who used to be a pretty good black and white printer, I hate digital conversions to black and white and try to avoid them. I don't find the PS tools very useful either. The work I've seen with Silver Effects Pro usually looks good, but I don't own a copy so I can't say more about it.

- Dan

Thanks Dan. You nailed the trouble I was having. I cant seem to digitally separate the background from the tree. Tonally they are very close. I tried to create a mask based on edges where I would isolate the tree, but it did not help very much. Some work some don't.

What a fine B&W print this must make. A great variety of tones and lines.