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Description
This is one photo I am very proud of. I have never pushed my abilities as far before, everything was stretched to it's limits for this photo.

This photo was taken in macro mode on my camera at the minimum focal length. It was taken on the inch-wide gap above my F4 and F5 keys on my computer's keyboard - that gives you an idea of the size of the fobwatch. I had trouble finding a bright enough light source that had an even emission area. I ended up using my cold cathode tube from my computer as a light source, held around 3 inches away from the fobwatch. The thing is, my cold cathode tube emits a bright GREEN light, not white or yellow. What's more, my keyboard is currently painted a bright metallic silver - once again not white. And at such a short distance taking a clear photo proved nearly impossible. I took over 60 shots of this fobwatch to get everything just right.

I normally do very little post-processing - just a run through Neat Image, add the border, resize and unsharp mask. Occasionally I'll slightly adjust the contrast, edit the curves slightly or do some other small fiddling but nothing strikingly different. This is the first time I have ever altered the colours of an image so drastically - it was originally all a VERY bright green, washed out, distorted and blurry. I think it was all worth it though, I'm very happy with how it turned out. You'd never know it was lit by a green light and it's sitting on a silver surface

For those curious enough, yes, it's an original Swiss fobwatch. My Mum bought an old chest of drawers that was over 125 years old and we found this hidden in a secret compartment inside it. We don't know exactly when it was put in there and forgotten about it, but it is obviously old and would have been valuable if it was intact and working. When I found it it was one solid chunk of grease and dirt - I did my best to remove most of the dirt with a knife blade and tweezers but I couldn't remove the stains on the metal.

EDIT: I uploaded the original photo, unedited into my scraps section. You can view it here so you can compare the actual original photo with this version. I still wouldn't call this a photomanipulation though, it's not drastic enough in my books.

Description
This is one photo I am very proud of. I have never pushed my abilities as far before, everything was stretched to it's limits for this photo.

This photo was taken in macro mode on my camera at the minimum focal length. It was taken on the inch-wide gap above my F4 and F5 keys on my computer's keyboard - that gives you an idea of the size of the fobwatch. I had trouble finding a bright enough light source that had an even emission area. I ended up using my cold cathode tube from my computer as a light source, held around 3 inches away from the fobwatch. The thing is, my cold cathode tube emits a bright GREEN light, not white or yellow. What's more, my keyboard is currently painted a bright metallic silver - once again not white. And at such a short distance taking a clear photo proved nearly impossible. I took over 60 shots of this fobwatch to get everything just right.

I normally do very little post-processing - just a run through Neat Image, add the border, resize and unsharp mask. Occasionally I'll slightly adjust the contrast, edit the curves slightly or do some other small fiddling but nothing strikingly different. This is the first time I have ever altered the colours of an image so drastically - it was originally all a VERY bright green, washed out, distorted and blurry. I think it was all worth it though, I'm very happy with how it turned out. You'd never know it was lit by a green light and it's sitting on a silver surface

For those curious enough, yes, it's an original Swiss fobwatch. My Mum bought an old chest of drawers that was over 125 years old and we found this hidden in a secret compartment inside it. We don't know exactly when it was put in there and forgotten about it, but it is obviously old and would have been valuable if it was intact and working. When I found it it was one solid chunk of grease and dirt - I did my best to remove most of the dirt with a knife blade and tweezers but I couldn't remove the stains on the metal.

EDIT: I uploaded the original photo, unedited into my scraps section. You can view it here so you can compare the actual original photo with this version. I still wouldn't call this a photomanipulation though, it's not drastic enough in my books.