Fetid Adder's Tongue

[Diane Miller]

Shot last February in a damp redwood forest bottom 70 mi up the coast from San Francisco. It's a focus stack, to get greater DOF for a very small flower.

Canon 5D3, Sigma 180 macro, tripod (of course), and some luck with no moving air. ISO 800, f/11, 1/8 sec. (Could have gone to a smaller aperture but wouldn't have given a lot more DOF and wanted to keep the BG soft.) It was in the shade, too.

[PhilCook]

Nice job with the photo stack Dianne, beautiful design on this flower....good things in small packages it seems, looks similar to some of our native terrestrial orchid species

[Bob Miller]

Hi Diane....lovely flower and nicely done stack....I am just starting to use this technique with PS6 .....Curious.....How many photos were in your stack?

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Diane,
The DOF looks good and I like the diagonal comp. I am noticing a good bit of noise in the BG - a round of noise reduction would help here I think. I am also noticing some artifacts around the upper right petal tip - some clean up there would also help the image IMO. Beautiful specimen - TFS.

Allen

[Diane Miller]

Looking back at the raw files, only 3, at f/11. I would have thought more...

Allen, I do see the artifacts, which I hadn't noticed before. Thanks -- will fix them. Looks like some BG cleanup caught the tip of the petal -- I'm usually more careful.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Diane. Nice to see you posting here in Macro! A very interesting little flower and a good job with the in-the-field stacking. I like the even lighting, the diagonal comp, and the clean background. Allen already noted the background noise and the artifacts - both of which can be corrected. If you are applying sharpening to the image as a whole, that will often emphasize any background noise - I typically selectively sharpen only the subject to avoid this. Overall, this is very well done and I hope to see more of your images here in Macro!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Diane,
Very nice! Some great tweak suggestions above to improve an excellent image!

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, guys! I do occasionally dig out the macro lens, and also an IR body (is that out of the box?), so do need to expand my participation here! It's a great place to hang out.

BG does need some NR -- will do on the master file. (I already fixed the cloning artifacts.)

I never sharpen a master file beyond the conservative LR default, but going to JPEG from the master file in LR there is probably some sharpening that I can't control. However, comparing the final JPEG and the master file at the same magnification, I don't think I've ever seen a difference.

I will sometimes do some Structure in Nik Viveza or Detail Extractor in Nik CEP, which brings out noise. And usually I'll mask out the BG for both of those.

[Arthur Morris]

Beautiful flower with a killer BKGR. Great job on the focus stacking. A square works well here.

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, Artie (it i may be so familiar)!! Means an extra lot coming from you!

Looking at it here, I'm thinking I should add a little on top.

[Arthur Morris]

YAW Diane. Artie is fine, artie with a lower case "a" is even better. A smidge added to the top would be fine as it would make the space above and below equal.

[Anita Bower]

Beautiful photograph of a graceful and exotic looking flower. The diagonal is very pleasing. The angle of the flower is great. I love the colors and how they seem to be subtly picked up in the bg. Good job with focus stacking! I'm impressed. Others have pointed out small improvements needed. I would crop from the sides, maybe the right more than the left, to create the square shape. Excellent work!

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, Anita. I went back to the master file and there is more on top, so I included it -- won't bother to repost, but that makes it a square. Could also crop from the sides...

I found some more areas that needed work. A focus stack leaves a blurred area where an element is in front of another one. Was able to repair several of those by careful cloning. Think this was one I never quite finished. Done now -- thanks for all the comments and catches!

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like the image very much indeed the colours and background work very well together. the detail is good but I see some artefact in the upper right flower and possibly on the stem beneath the flower head? I would suggest some noise reduction overall and then a little more on the background.
I like the crop shape, just in case anyone did not realize the image can be seen completely by hitting the F11 key.