Garden Mum

[Charles Wesley]

Here's one of my garden mums against the lawn. Canon EOS- 1D, EF 100- 400 mm f/4.5- 5.6 IS zoom, 550 EX flash and a tripod.

Can't find the exposure settings.
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Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL

[Mike Moats]

Hey Charles, very nice, looks like it was painted. Like the angle on the stem, good details and color combo.

[Julie Kenward]

I agree. I can only add that bringing up the darker area on the bottom half of the flower just a bit with a shadow/highlights tweak might be nice as well. Lovely BG and placement in the frame. It does look painted and certainly doesn't look "flashed" so good job!

[Charles Wesley]

Jules & Mike,

Thanks for the comments. I don't really like flash in my floral photos. It did help with this photo IMO...
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Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL

[denise ippolito]

Charles, Really nice composition and details. I like the BG color and the stem on an angle. Looks pristine.

[Anita Bower]

Just lovely! Great color contrast against the pale green grass. Nice angle of the stem. I know the pleasure of photographing flowers from one's own garden! This flower is a beauty.

Question: Did you do something in post-processing to get the edges to look more defined?

[Charles Wesley]

Anita,

I'm a fan of Topaz Adjust after learning about the plug in from Rick Sammon. It has several adjustments for color, detail and other features. I need to shoot more flowers now after learning about this awesome tool.

TA gives your images a real punch as Rick Sammons shows on his web page....
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Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL

[Anita Bower]

Anita,

I'm a fan of Topaz Adjust after learning about the plug in from Rick Sammon. It has several adjustments for color, detail and other features. I need to shoot more flowers now after learning about this awesome tool.

TA gives your images a real punch as Rick Sammons shows on his web page....
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Thanks, Charles. I used a trial version of TA, but then bought T Detail. Thanks so much for answering my question!
Anita

[Charles Wesley]

Anita,

Your more than welcome. I've enjoyed seeing your wonderful floral photos. You're getting better and better.

I think stopping down as much as possible combined with TA really improves an image much more than I thought possible. One can control, brightness, contrast, color and sharpness with this most powerful tool...
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Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL

[Dave Leroy]

Very nicely done Charles. At first I thought there was some back lighting, perhaps because the edges stand out so nicely. Interesting comments about Topaz. I have it and use it very little except for the nr.
Dave

[Charles Wesley]

Dave,

I think you should experiment with Topaz Adjust. It gives you so many effects. I make numerous tweaks: exposure, brightness, contrast, color and saturation. Just choose the best visual effect. Does it give more visual impact than my normal PS/ CS4 work flow? TA is so much more than NR. I learned about it from this site:
http://rickrawrulessammon.blogspot.com/2009/10/cool-shot-i-missed-on-my-st-augustine.html
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Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL

[Dave Leroy]

Thanks for the advice and link Charles. I will have a closer look at TA. Dave

[Ed Vatza]

Your lawn needs some greening up! :D Ok, just kidding, Charles. I think the image is excellent. I like the detail in the flower and the background is great and complements the flower well. I am a fan of the entire Topaz Suite - Adjust, Detail, Simplify, DeNoise, Clean, etc. I find I am now using Adjust as a regular part of my workflow. And some of the presets are great for obtaining specific types of effects. I also am really liking Simplify as well.

[Charles Wesley]

Ed,

You're a very good photographer. Glad to see the Topaz Suite works well for you. I'll check out Topaz Simplify this week.

Have a great day....
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Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL

[Anita Bower]

Your lawn needs some greening up! :D Ok, just kidding, Charles. I think the image is excellent. I like the detail in the flower and the background is great and complements the flower well. I am a fan of the entire Topaz Suite - Adjust, Detail, Simplify, DeNoise, Clean, etc. I find I am now using Adjust as a regular part of my workflow. And some of the presets are great for obtaining specific types of effects. I also am really liking Simplify as well.

Interestingly, I just bought the Topaz suite. :D
Anita

[Charles Wesley]

Anita,

Glad to hear you got Topaz. There's some really good videos on YouTube. It can be used alone i.e. TA or with other HDR software. I'm spending my time learning this excellent software. Like Ed's idea to run it as part of my work flow.

I still spend more time setting up the photograph....
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Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL