This week’s photo was done for an assignment with the theme “Red” but I actually had the idea a while ago and retrieved it from my little photo idea notebook. The penguins came from a Clearance bin at Target at 65 cents each and I took the picture in my home made lightbox. I had to keep the whole thing hidden from Sam, lest she demand that the penguins be turned over to her, because obviously this kind of frivolity isn’t the purview of respectable adults.
After looking at this photo I liked it, but I thought the background might be too light. So I put in a blue piece of poster board and took this one:
Which do you like better? I thought I’d like the contrast between the yellow and blue, but I actually think this darker background makes the little red guy stand out less, which is the entire point of the picture. Speaking of which, all the penguins were yellow to begin with. I changed the one to red using a Hue/Saturation layer mask in Photoshop. Nifty!
I think I like the white one better. Only b/c the red guy now looks a little washed out. Maybe you could brighten the red a bit in Photoshop? : )
I really like the yellow guys against the blue. But the red really pops against the white background.
I think the blue makes the yellow and red look duller. Could you fix that in post-processing? Otherwise, I like the white better. All the colors look brighter. (Thanks for asking!)
Blue background. When I opened the post I saw the first picture without reading any of the explanantion… it took my eyes a while to figure out that the red “thing” in the picture was actually another penguin. My mind had completely genericized it as simply something different.
On the blue background the form of the red penguin is easier to identify, even as the color red itself is tempered as you say.
Even after reading the explanation and comparing the two pics again and again, I just like the blue background picture better.