Dinner Two Ways

This dinner is a lovely tarragon chicken baked in a phyllo dough shell. But, as you can see from the two versions one is more attractive than the other.

The bottom photo is a straight shot without any post processing. It looks fine but it lacks that pizazz that jumps out and says eat me now!

So how do we get the desired effect?

You can do it two ways. If you have a filter system you can use a graduated warming filter and shoot the original shot. This will brighten things up and increase your contrast a bit.

Or you can do what I did and use photo editing software. The basic procedure is to put a second layer over the top of the original image, and then choose an appropriate color , I chose a yellow-orange color. After you have your color, you turn it into a gradient by clicking the gradient button, or similar method. In the gradient options screen I chose color fading from top to bottom with a transparent bottom.

Next, you use the fill bucket tool to paint the second blank layer with your gradient. This leaves your image looking like someone spilled ink on it and tried to wipe it off. Now here comes the secret. In the layer options in most programs you can choose a blend mode. This tells the software how the top layer should interact with the bottom layer. I chose soft light for this blend but other programs may be different. The best thing to do is to experiment and see which turns out the best.

And if you are wondering, yes I made the dinner.