Orchid #23

Beautiful capture, Sandy. Love the black background.

Very stylish and expertly processed. Good work!

Sandy

Very pretty orchid Sandy. Sometimes it's hard to position these, but this one is positioned oerfectly

Best
Kathy

Agree, agree, agree, especially in the "larger" version.  I know you've been doing this (posting at NPN) a whole lot longer than I have, but I would love to know what software you use and/or a tiny bit about your processing, even if you just add it to your list of info occasionally.  (But you don't have to.) 

Nothing magic (except a couple Photo Art images   where there IS magic involved!)
1. Start with a good image  (in PA, you can occasionally get away with a not-so-good image, since you're using filters, etc)
2. For a flower, start with as perfect a bloom as you can (lesson learned long ago from Catherine Reilly) . Otherwise, you will be cloning out dark spots and blips  forever)
3. With orchids, especially, try to find a bloom whose flowers are on the same focal plane, unless you stack which I have not learned to do yet. This orchid (above) is all on the same plane, so was quite easy. often, the blooms are every which way which makes for a beautiful orchid, but horrible picture.
4. I often bracket exposures - gives the best chance at getting close to right
5. CS6 - exposure, whites, and highlights most crucial)
6. Levels and curves adjustments
7. Here, I do a loose crop to make the image larger on the screen, to see details. The final crop will be later
8. Adjust colours selectively.
9. Use shadows tool if needed to lighten dark areas. Not too much or it looks fake
10. If you don't like the BG - change it - here, I had a black cloth behind the orchid that I simply had to darken with the levels slider,  but you can always paint in a BG ( although it takes forever.) Topaz Re-Mask will also drop out a BG quickly.
10. Here, .I usually run the main part of the image through Viveza to bring out structure.
11. Correct what needs to be corrected. I used to be more of a purist like Rich Ditch and never clone junk out; now I have no hesitation to get rid of bad areas, crossing branches, any crap I don't want.
12. Remove or lessen noise if needed.  Make the final crop.
13. If you think you're done, enlarge the image on the monitor and look at every square inch - I always find something I missed.
14. Make a frame, if you're interested.
15. Post and pray!
16. Enlarge the posted image again and check every inch. I sometimes find I have still missed something, so delete it, re-do, and re-post
17. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE

Hope this helps!

Sandy


 

Thanks, Sandy!

Sandy: Beautiful blooms superbly lit and captured. Most excellent.>=))>

Sandy, this is REALLY nice!  Congratulations on EP.  Nothing but perfect.

Beautiful flower and very nice work Sandy. Thanks for the explanation of your processing too. Congrats on WP! Hope you didn't get stuck too badly int he Madras traffic jams this week.

I missed this beauty Sandy. An award very well deserved.