Micro Detail

There are lots of ways to make a poor image but if you know most of the ways, you can avoid them if possible. The image above looks quite nice when viewed from a distance, in a small print, or very small on screen. The problem is that when seen close or with more detail (click on image to bring up the 1000 pixel version), while the shapes and shadows are still good, now you see the dirt and the patterns of rust aren't all that interesting and there's nothing more to see than you saw looking at the small image. This can happen to any image if you enlarge it enough and there are certainly images which are lovely as a 5X7 in hand, yet poor in a 13X19. What I'm talking about here is images which look good on a 3 inch LCD screen or not much more than thumbnail size on screen.

The problem is that thumbnails are what we select images from to work on - so you need to stop at some point and ask yourself if the image has enough going for it to hold up at 5X7 or 8X10. I think in this case the answer is no.

What would it have taken to work in a larger size?

- less dirt
- interesting swirls in the rust
- a small pool of water
- something worth seeing at a larger size - who knows what it could have been - it wasn't and that's the end of the story.

Or is it? What if I increased contrast in some of the rust - bringing out more colour and texture?



Better, but probably still not enough - though by this point I have been playing with the image long enough I don't trust my own judgment - time to pin it to the wall and think about it for a while - or force you to look at it and give me some feedback - sorry!