Rudbeckias

[Anita Bower]

Nikon d300, Sigma 105mm macro, 1/400, f3.2, ISO 200, pattern metering, wb auto, manual exposure, manual focus using live view, tripod, outdoors, natural light; PP: RAW conversion in Elements 7, basic adjustments in PS7, slight Topaz Adjust filter.

I'm especially wondering about the yellows.

Many thanks!!http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Ed Vatza]

Hi Anita,

I really, really like where you went with this image. I particularly like the oof flowers as background for flowers of the same type. There are two things that I am not real keen on. First is the green on the right side. I would consider either cropping it out or cloning oof background flowers in. The second thing is the grouping of flowers in the LL/LC. They seem to be in equal focus with the one standing tall which seems to me to be the main focal point. Those other flowers keep drawing my eye down and out of the frame.

[Kyle Marie Barcelos]

Beautiful picture. I would like just a little more on top, the BG doesn't bother me, I love the yellow and green blending together like that, The flowers on the bottom are also catching my eye like Ed said wish they where not so much in focus. Great job :)

[denise ippolito]

Anita, I like the soft focus look to this. The way the main flowers petal is curled up is interesting. I might smooth out some of the straight looking lines in the green part of the BG on the right side. I might tone down the center of the flowers.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Anita, I like the image as is, my suggestion would be to use a diffusser over top of the flower next time and that will tone down the harsh light on the flower center.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Anita,
I agree about the 2 bottom buds.....they seemed out of place.....but this was an easy fix. The yellows did look a bit hot......but i liked the vibrance and didn't want to just desat the yellows.....so I went to color balance and added +9 of blue....this added a bit of depth. I did run the entire image through Noise Ninja.....which smoothed the BG some.....but then I used 3 passes of Gausian blur(around 3.2) on the green to smooth it further....contracting each time I went. The crop off the bottom...started at the buds.....but then I included the 1 petal.....if you are OK with cloning/patching......you could put it back in to keep more of the green. I did crop off the left and right.....mostly to keep the proportions but to also get the flower a bit off center. I alos did slightly tone down the main flowers center bud.....small levels layer adjustment. These are minor tweaks IMO and your composition with the OOF flowers is very nice. Let me know your thoughts.
PS I looked at this in the preview....and prefer your original yellow vibrance.....so I may skip the blue color adjust.

[Anita Bower]

Hi Anita,
I agree about the 2 bottom buds.....they seemed out of place.....but this was an easy fix. The yellows did look a bit hot......but i liked the vibrance and didn't want to just desat the yellows.....so I went to color balance and added +9 of blue....this added a bit of depth. I did run the entire image through Noise Ninja.....which smoothed the BG some.....but then I used 3 passes of Gausian blur(around 3.2) on the green to smooth it further....contracting each time I went. The crop off the bottom...started at the buds.....but then I included the 1 petal.....if you are OK with cloning/patching......you could put it back in to keep more of the green. I did crop off the left and right.....mostly to keep the proportions but to also get the flower a bit off center. I alos did slightly tone down the main flowers center bud.....small levels layer adjustment. These are minor tweaks IMO and your composition with the OOF flowers is very nice. Let me know your thoughts.
PS I looked at this in the preview....and prefer your original yellow vibrance.....so I may skip the blue color adjust.

Roman:

I didn't ignore your helpful message! I've been busy on other photo projects and hope I can now once more participate here at BPN.

I just went through the steps duplicating in PS7 the steps you described. Your suggestions taught me some PP tricks I didn't know! I agree that it improves the image. The one thing I did not do was tone down the yellow. I did tone down the center part of the flower more than you did.
I do have a couple of questions regarding the Gaussian Blur:
1. How did you select the areas to blur? I used the lasso tool to roughly surround the main flower and inverted the selection. Seemed to work. I just wondered if there is a better way.
2. What did you mean by "contracting each time I went"?

Again, MANY thanks for taking the time to work on my image and help me improve it. That is why I participate here at BPN!

Anita :-)

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Anita,
No problem! As you can see.....I've been in your neck of the woods a few times and headed down to Longwood recently. I use the lasso to quickly select.....then when I select inverse......I may use the magic wand to further refine. If I do a few passes on something in PS.....not sure if 7 has it..... and you made your selection....under Select> modify....you can expand or contract.....and select the amount of pixels......so I may run noise ninja or blurring on my initial selection.....contract it 3-5 pixels.....and then run it again.....and repeat the process. I do smaller adjustments......but more times to feather it gradually. Many other ways but seems to work for me. You can also use this to sharpen just a bird......seperately from a BG.....select the BG.....select inverse.....and then run select>modify>contract 1 pixel......avoid a bit of the halos....and contract in further on each progressive pass. This seemed to work well with PS7 and still does an OK job in CS2. I think Artie posted a tutorial in the educational forum on sharpening.....you may want to check it out and see if you can apply it to PS7. Let me know if it works for you.
PS I may head down to longwood next week....send me a PM and I'll keep you posted on the day.