Wet on Leaf

By PF Staff in Favorite Photos on Nov 21, 2012

I was taking a photo class this past spring and we were given a a theme of "Wet" and asked to submit 2 photos on this theme. This is one. It was taken on a Saturday morning after an early morning rain. I saw this leaf on a Kiwi vine right as I stepped out the door. I took just the one shot, trying to get not the entire leaf but a cut-out portion. In this respect the edge of the leaf in the lower left and lower right corners were accidental.

Equipment Used

• Pentax K-x (hand held)
• smc Pentax-DA L 18-55mm F3.5-5.6AL
• Shutter Speed 1/80 second
• Aperture f5.6
• ISO 1600

Post-Processing

This was processed in Adobe Lightroom 4.  Here is the original photo:

My first step was to use the Auto Tone to check on the tonal characteristics. Sometimes this works to better the photo, but other times it gives me an idea on where and how to tweak. In this case the Auto Tone setting worked very well. The slightly darker tone brought out a more contrast in the texture of the leaf. The other change I made was to use a vignette preset, in this case onOne Perfect Preset vol. 1 Vignette Dk-08. The vignetting took care of the the corner problem, leaving a very interesting glow outline effect in the lower left and the vignetting added more drama to the upper pars of the photo.

Final product:

-Bill2849