Popping - Good or bad?

well for what it's worth, in my opinion for this shot b&w work's well but you don't need the colour pop. The subject image is strong enough with out the person in the image try to clone him out (don’t forget the shadow).

Just my opinion

James

Yes, I did rather a lot to this image. Much more than usual, I hasten to add. The less time in front of my monitor the better.

Interestingly, I think what caused me to do so much work arose from wanting to capture what I was aiming for when I took the shot - the man on the blower with the dramatic backdrop. When the man came out so small (and I couldn't zoom in further without losing the composition), I resorted to popping and pp-ing to make sure he wasn't lost in the frame. But having absorbed feedback here, I've been converted to what seems to be the consensus view that popping isn't required (I won't remove the man though, as I think he still adds to the composition).

Galoot - your picture seems to meet much better the criteria for popping as set out by David Trout (btw, thanks for your comments David). I'll take your word for it re. the dullness of the colours, but I like the b&w aspects of this most and find the popped areas a bit much. I remember, though, another popped image of yours of New York which you entered in a comp. As I recall, this was an image where popping worked really well. Perhaps you could post that here and see if you can win any converts?!

Am a bit in a rush, but did want to say that I really love the subtle popping in this pic. Sorry if I'm upsetting anyone!

I'm really upset.

G

Sorry, George! I know it's a bit of a bold statement I should have softened the blow a bit more.

Dr Mhuni, was it this one ?




or this one ?

The second one. I think this works well because the cab is emblematic of NY. Did you try it with the orange and white area in b&w - I'm wondering what that would look like?

I think I prefer the first un-popped, though can see why you've done this. Love the grouping of figures in this shot. Did you selectively increase the exposure/brightness on the red head - as when I desaturate this she comes out noticeably lighter than the others?

Ah, if only we'd never evolved to see colour.

Or anything else, for that matter, that distracts from immutable shape and form.

Respect to Dr M.

The woman was left pretty much as in the original.

I converted the rest to B&W and upped the contrast to isolate the woman a bit from her surroundings, but not too much as I still wanted her to be part of the scene.

I'll try taking out the orange from the taxi pic and see what it looks like

With no intention of hijacking this thread, I just want to show another variant of "Popping", or selective colouring as I like to call it.
Mother Nature provided all the ingredients.....All I did was slightly desaturate the greens. Just to make the leaf stand out a bit more.




K10D with Sigma 2.8/24MM AF Wide II. PP: Bibble 5 Pro & Gimp.

Yes, that's quite neat Martin. Though not as in your face as proper popping - so perhaps the anti-poppers would approve of this! Without your comments I might have said that you'd selectively saturated the leaf, rather than the reverse.

Well....I am a firm believer of the "subtle" approach.(when it comes to this kind of PP)
All I did was desaturate the whole picture, add a mask in Gimp and paint back the leaf. The colour was already there.