Grab shots can be nice

This shot could be better but its a nice grab shot.

Personally, I like pictures of flowers immediately after a rain storm. The light is soft and puts a wonderful catchlight on each water droplet decorating the flower petals. But an open shade grab shot still makes a fine memory picture.

I've been playing with shooting RAW. I'm having mixed results. I'm not sure that more control is always a good idea. I'm not convinced my decisions are always better than the camera's. I tend to like warm images. Because of this, when I enhance a RAW image it tends to be warmer than possibly it should be.

Also, working on a RAW image encourages me to play with the image more than I normally would. And trust me, I don't require all that much encouragement. I tried to keep the highlight areas from blocking up as I worked to make the foreground lily pop from the picture. The foreground lily is cleaner and brighter than the others. I'm not sure that the effect looks natural. It may look a little forced.

Here is an image shot with a Canon SD10 point-and-shoot a couple of years ago. It was shot as a jpeg, with the endpoints set in Photoshop to maximize the contrast. It has been enhanced very little compared to today's lily picture.

Clearly, the after-the-storm lighting gives far more punch to the image and the water droplets are a fine visual addition. This image makes today's photo look flat, a bit on the lifeless side.