magnuscanis' photostream  

This version of my peppers photo is based on the same original image as the other one, but I desaturated it using "lightness" mode instead of "luminosity" mode, which has made the red quite a bit lighter and the green a little darker. I prefer the greater tonal contrast in the other version, but this one's interesting for comparison. For some images, "lightness" mode gives a better effect.

I think the other steps in processing both versions of the image were effectively the same, though I didn't make careful notes. In both, I tweaked the levels post-desaturation and applied an unsharp mask.

As with the other shot of peppers (plus garlic), I used a reflector to lighten the shadows on the right side of this image.

This was desaturated in luminosity mode, which had the effect of darkening the tones of the red chilli and lightening those of the green pepper.

Garlic and a red chilli pepper will be amongst the ingredients I use for tonight's dinner (pasta in a simple sauce). I'm not sure yet whether I'll use the green (capsicum) pepper for it, or save that for another day.

This was shot in natural light using the back of a white envelope as a makeshift reflector to lighten the right side of the scene slightly.

Here's another shot of the garlic using artificial light, but this time with the exposure time reduced to compensate for the extra light. I also set my camera's white balance for tungsten light (rather than auto, as I'd been using) and used the self-timer so that I could get myself out of the way and avoid casting a shadow over the scene.

Here is the desaturated version of my accidentally overexposed garlic picture. Interestingly, the desaturation (using either "light" or "luminosity" mode in the Gimp "desaturate" tool - I can't remember which for this particular image). has made some detail visible that wasn't present in the original version.