Jack Portrait Taken in his Lounge Chair

Computer that I like to post to my blog was down on Monday.   Here is a picture of Jack.  I had been using his iPhone 5c as there were issues with the Camera+ not wanting to take a photo.  So, after I got that fixed, I decided to try a picture of him in his lounge chair.  This was a "grab
 the moment" shot.  No time for posing or telling him to smile, put his glasses up higher on his nose.  HDR mode on. The original background had the wall and bookcases behind him.  I did not like this.  So, I used the healing brush and paint brush to make a different background.  I also cropped to make more a portrait.  Post processing done in PSE 11. Maybe I should have used color splash to change the color of his shirt.

Jack's Father's Pocket Watch - Still life

Today I am trying a still life object for my image. I used daylight window lighting. My husband has a pocket watch that belonged to his father. Because of the convex glass covering the face I knew it would be difficult to avoid glare. I still have some shadow on the clock hands but I feel it is minimal. Original photo taken in color with square format. The object was lying on a dark green piece of cloth that I use for backgrounds. I cropped and converted to Noir in native camera app. I did add some shadows, cloned out dog hair and lint, and sharpened using PSE 11. Did not want to use an special apps.  I think ti avoid lightness at the top edge I could have applied a vignette.  May try later with a macro lens just to see if I get more clarity with the numbers on the watch face. It definitely would not have worked using the overhead lighting from the stove light.