Blue Flower with Tiny Bug

Carolina Photo Guy

Senior Member
Blue Flower small.jpg

I chose the head on approach so that I could get as much of the flower detail as possible.
I have done nothing in PS other than to re-size for this critique.
I like the shot, but my hind brain tells me something is wrong. I just don't see it.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Pete
 

Joseph Bautsch

New member
Good shot. Great color and detail in the flower. You can almost reach out and touch it. My suggestion, make the format square and eliminate some of the empty space on the left and right. Also. in a shot like this the detail of the subject flower is most important. Here the background is too much in focus and is competing with the flower for attention. Try a more shallow depth of field and put the background a lot more out of focus while keeping the flower in focus. You didn't list any EXIF data so I don't know what f/stop you used. To get a shallower DOF open up the aperture.
 

Carolina Photo Guy

Senior Member
Small Blue Flower.jpg

Is this what you had in mind?
This is a new approach for me. I have never been a fan of the square. I have always preferred the rectangle, but this could grow on me.
But it still seems like something is off.

I guess now it becomes Blue Flower without Tiny Bug!
 
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Joseph Bautsch

New member
I've never been locked in on any particular format. Which one I use will depend on the subject and what I'm trying to achieve with the shot. I've never been a fan of head on shots but prefer to break up the symmetry and give the eye a little something different to look at. In this case I think the square works a little better than the rectangle. Some may disagree. The one to use is the one you like best. Just don't be afraid to change things up and try something new. It's probably a little too tight around the flower and needs a little more breathing room. Putting the background out of focus probably would help. What is happening now is that you have a good shot, good exposure but not quite satisfied with the composition. That is how you develop your own style of photography.
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
The cropped version is better, I would've made a suggestion to use a square crop on the original. I agree w/ Mr. Bautsch in that the cropped version you have pictured above is probably a little too tight.

Overall, I think the image is slightly overexposed. If you have access to PS, then you should also be able to tweak the exposure in Bridge/ACR. Go for Daylight/5500k.
 

Carolina Photo Guy

Senior Member
Small Blue Flower.jpg

OK How is this?
I also de-pooped the leaf in the lower left and completely removed the leaf that the bug was on.
Instead of 5500K, I reduced the brightness and slightly increased the contrast.

Thanks for the suggestions. Still trying to wrap my head around the square, but I am coming around.

Pete
 

KennethHamlett

New member
Here's another view:

Blue Flower small.jpg

All of the adjustments in this image can be done in camera. This was done very quickly (I didn't bother to extract around every stem of the flower, too much time) but just to show you what's possible. As mentioned all of this can be achieved in camera by using the right lens, shallow depth-of-field, adding an 81A warming filter to the lens (it looks like this was shot in open shade) and slightly underexposing the image (spot meter off the flower's stamen and bracket in 1/3 stop increments).

To achieve this effect out of camera here's what was done.

In Photoshop
1. Roughly selected the area of the flowers petals using the lasso tool with a 2px feather.
2. Inversed the selection
3. Used the lens blur filter set to hexagonal 6 and a radius of 28 and blade curvature of 34. Used uniform instead of Gaussian.

Imported image in LR

In Lightroom
1. Increased color temp by +3 and tint by +25
2. Decreased exposure by -0.08
3. Increased recovery by 1
4. Increased blacks by 8
5. Increased brightness and contrast both by 9
6. Decreased clarity by -25
7. Increased saturation by +21
8. Post crop vignette of -25
9. Cropped to my personal preference

This sounds like a lot of work, but all in all it took about 15 minutes. To get the true effect the image would require more detailed work around the flower to extract the real detail, but again all of this can be done in camera.
 

Joseph Bautsch

New member
Great computer work. It would have been simpler to do it in camera at the time it was shot. But this shows you what can be done in post processing to make a good shot a lot better.
 

KennethHamlett

New member
Great computer work. It would have been simpler to do it in camera at the time it was shot. But this shows you what can be done in post processing to make a good shot a lot better.

Thanks Joseph. That's the point, taking this image from good to the next level can easily be accomplished in camera. No digital darkroom work required.
 

premc44

Senior Member
What makes the picture different and much better in the end is the shallow depth of field, more than anything else. The cropping, no doubt, has also contributed to the overall appeal. Many people will feel a little intimidated by the post processing steps (Greek and Latin!)mentioned, but even without that, choosing a large aperture for a shallow DOF and proper cropping would have achieved more or less the same effect. However, if one is a genius in post processing, nothing like it, as has been shown here.
 
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