Now I get it. The tree was too prominent. Readjusted the picture some more with less tree, although I would like to keep as much of the leaves there as possible for the autumn theme.
Worked some more on the woman's expression and lighting.
Ok how about making the edge of the memory fuzzy keeping the girl crisp.
Tweaked the lighting some more and the skin surface settings as well, and rendered with varying levels of depth of field, to see how it looks. There's one I prefer but I'm curious for other opinions.
great improvement Scott, lighting is so much crisper great work on the surfaces too.
I still think it would better using the tree to frame cho and not appear behind her that much....but like always it is just my opinion and they are your images to do what you want with them.
Thanks, Szark! Yes, definitely having fun now. Most of the frustration is gone.
Oh, the irony of your suggested changes! Made me laugh. I've tried those angles, so no real surprise there, but the light thing... I wanted the background darker, then I brightened it up because I was afraid of making it too dark. Plus, I wanted to have the plant visible, but that was just to make me happy, not really necessary to the scene.
So here's the first revision.
I still think cropping the figure like that works against the balance of the image, have you tried 16:9 widescreen raito for the image size. If you look at my mock ups of your image on the last page again, see how the figure, when cropped more tightly grabs you attention making you look at what the figure is looking at.
Hmm... hadn't tried widescreen. I'll give that a shot.
I confess, I keep cropping the figure because I can't get the bump out of her back and it drives me nuts. I'll take another shot at fixing it, though. Thanks!
Mr Leong: I'd also like to see you try Szark's suggestion and make the edges fuzzy...
sithkitten: Can you brighten the screens so that they are glowing, either in the software or in postwork?
Here's my latest...experimenting with a new camera angle, a subtler DOF setting, and a different texture on the house (for some visual contrast). Also added some wildlife and made some additional improvements to the pose, lighting (but this was before I moved the camera...), fit of the hat, etc.
What do you think of these changes? Any ideas for making her eyes brighter/livelier?
sithkitten: Can you brighten the screens so that they are glowing, either in the software or in postwork?
I would love to, but I haven't figured out how yet. When I look at the scene on my monitor, they're bright and crisp and glowy, and I'm happy. When I render, they go fuzzy. I'm thinking there's a depth of field issue, and I just haven't figured out where the setting is. That's my project for this morning.
I like the birds you added to your image. Nothing like a raven or two to make life more interesting.
Well, no luck. I found where all the depth of field stuff is, but I can't get the monitors to match up with the clarity of the unrendered version. Help? Anybody got any suggestions?
I don't think the DOF is making them darker at render.
Try looking in the Surfaces Pane for those montiors and increase the ambient...better still post a screencap of the surfaces for one of the monitors and we will getting you glowing in no time. Well when I get back later.
Well, I still haven't gotten the focus to sharpen on the monitor images (dangit!), but I boosted the ambient strength nutty high and got about the same brightness I see before I render. I can live with a little bit of fuzz, as long as the images are recognizable as fall-type stuff.
