My first attempt at candle photography

[Stella1952]

I like the brownish background better than the black - blends with the other colors mo' better, IMHO.

The GIMP is a full-featured open source photo editing program. The interface is a little awkward, but it does everything Photoshop does without the pricetag.

http://www.gimp.org/

[Sabrina]

I just played with your original pic really quick (hope you don't mind). I use photoshop elements which I picked up on ebay for like $50. I love photoshop because I think it's very user friendly and can do pretty much anything you need to do in photography. All I did was added a screen layer, removed your color cast, adjusted your white balance, and bumped up your contrast a bit.

I use all shades of colors in photography and find they're all easy to edit for me in photoshop. When removing a photo from it's original background it is a bit easier to do it on a colored background if what you're removing is more on the white side.

The only thing I'd suggest to you is to move the candle around a bit so you don't get the shadow you have behind. What kind of light box did you make? If you're able to (and haven't already) try attaching a light on the top. Also, (again if you're not already) try getting some 6100k Daylight bulbs. These will give more of a nice bright white light. You can also check your cameras settings to see if you have a daylight white balance to use with the 6100k bulbs.

Anyways, I just spent like 2 minutes on the pics so nothing spectacular...

If it were my photo I would crop it down a bit to get rid of the blue glow on the left side as well.

[joanncat18]

Thanks,it looks nice.