As an exemplar of an arch, this photograph is entirely adequate. But as a photograph, it has several problems. First, about 15 per cent of it is unable to justify the real estate it occupies. If the image can make any claim to be engrossing, that claim is dribbling away at the object’s rusty right edge and vanishes altogether at the right edge of the handle. Best would be to crop the image so that the object’s right edge could disappear discreetly out of the viewer’s line of sight. But if its background were significantly darkened, perhaps the handle might become a useful aspect of the picture, at which point its potential for upsetting the fragile balance of scale might have to be considered. Easier, I think, just to lop the thing off.
As the instructions implied, the infrared process in PhotoShop does not bring about an especially enthralling result when the original has little green. For the blue-ish green of this picture, I would have to pronounce the infrared process virtually worthless. The process enhanced one small, diverting component: a scribble about one-third from the top edge, halfway across. Other mildly intriguing parts were diminished or suppressed. The right side naturally retained its annoying lightness.
This is an experiment to which I shall have to return if I am to have anything other than abject defeat to remember it by.
Now that the class has ended, it seems fair enough to show what I gave up by forswearing the preliminary processing that I usually do. On this image, it would have made the infrared much more interesting:
next page: Frontal Lighting; Channel Mixing: Colored Infrared Image or
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