Difficult set up. Used black string and black backgound to precariously balance the dishes. The fire is burning 151 Rum, the Air is dry ice, earth is obvious and water was done by using a pump with a tub under the set up and a straw to get it coming into the dish.
pp was crop, unsharp, then using layers I processed portions of the image differently. Darkened the background, decreased reds in the water element dish, increase red, yellow, blue and cyan in the fire element, midtones and highlights in the air dish, back to water to increase brightness, decrease contrast, bump shadows/highlights/midtones, unsharp on water. Flatten image. smudge fire and air at 70% to fix edges. spot blur, sharpen and smudge. Border, noise reduction, resize, unsharp mask and spot sharpen. New layer to adjust fog (desat&lighten) Flatten and smudge edges.
Sounds like a lot but the original was only enhanced and not altered. Just had to encance different portions differently.
Disqualification Details
You must retain your original, unedited file (exactly as recorded by your camera), and provide it to the Site Council along with a list of your editing steps within 48 hours of any validation request. Files that have been saved or altered with any editing or transfer software are NOT originals.
Sucks you were DQed. This shot was beter done than mine. By chance, did you also find Inspiration
Actually my inspiration came when I first saw the challenge because I misunderstood and thought you had to have all four elements. Even after I realized you only needed one of them I still went for this one. I had to drive all over the place to find dry ice and went way the heck out of my way for it. I bought the dishes and the plant, and 151 rum, the pump, lamps for lighting, and the black foam board behind it. Then I had a heck of a time figuring out how to get them suspended because at first everything I tried didn't work because of the weight of the dishes. I ended up putting my sons little table between two CD towers and tying the bottom together to keep the weight of the dishes from pulling the top ends toward eachother when the dishes were on top. There really weren't enough outlets near my set up to get the lighting the way I wanted it so I sort of had to overprocess a bit to fix what didn't work. It sucks that it got dq'd but in the end it wouldn't have gotten that great of a score anyway and even though the person probably requested validation because they though I did something wrong in editing (which I didn't) it was still my fault it was dq'd because my download software changed the original file somehow and so I didn't have the original from the camera. Well lesson learned and a good thing it was now rather than later when I would have had a ribbon right? lol like that's gonna happen anytime soon. Anyay I feel good about the shot overall because I was actually the only one who showed air among the several shots that did the same idea. Everyone else (including yours) just had empty cups or dishes to show air, which works but I feel good knowing I went a step beyond.
Although this image is similar in concept to others I like the way the bowls appear suspended in air. Well done and it is good to see something different.
Damn, yours is better than mine. I saw the same thing with shot glasses in my research, so I did it with wine glasses. I do like yours better. Good luck.
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