Least Bluets

[Ken Childs]

Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Av mode
1/10"
F32
ISO: 400
LR & CS3

Just outside shade lighting on this one. I've tried just about everything I can think of but it still doesn't feel quite right to me.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Ken,
Comp is excellent. Did you try desaturating/pulling back on the violet centers? I think they are a bit too dominant and take away from the soft feel......woth a shot.

[Anita Bower]

the composition is simple and elegant. i'd like to see the original image, with only minor adjustments--in other words, start over. i think it is too saturated, but when i lowered the saturation, it helped, but not enough. :)

[Ken Childs]

The flowers in the original are a lot more colorful than they are in this edit. I may have to start from scratch and see if I can get something out of it that works for me.

Keep the comments/suggestions coming!

[Charles Wesley]

Ken,

Anita & Roman have it right on your composition. Really like it. I think reprocessing the raw file will help like Anita says. I've taken several classes from Rob Shepard , editor , Outdoor Photographer Magazine. He recommends only very minor adjustments in both PS & LR. Rob gave live examples during theses classes of what can happen.

Ken did you spot meter the flowers and the add 1 1/2 stops more to bring them from grey to white or some other type of exposure? Say evaluation or matrix metering.

Not trying to tell you what to do. Only attempting to help. In PS, I tried adjusting exposure, levels, SH and saturation and could not get an esthethic improvement.

Would like to hear if you can improve it. I think it would help us all. I have the same issue myself ...
____________________
Charlie Wesley
St Augustine Beach, FL

[Ken Childs]

Not trying to tell you what to do. Only attempting to help.
Would like to hear if you can improve it. I think it would help us all. I have the same issue myself ...

Please tell me what to do! :)

I've been playing with this on and off today and I don't think there is a simple fix. The BG in the original is just too dark so to make it white without wrecking the colors of the flowers, I think I'll have to do some serious fine detail masking and painting. If I ever do get this one figured out, I'll let you know.

In the mean time, please keep on with the suggestions if any come to mind.

[Roman Kurywczak]

OK Ken,
here goes my quick whack at it in CS2. First I took only the entire center purple and yellow areas......brightness/contrast at +20 B and -3 on C......i then saturated the yellows a bit in color balance....just yellow part.....toned down 2 lower petals of R flower......went into selective color>white....took away black (can't remember #'s here)....took away black in the neutrals.....and added black to the black channel slightly. let me know your thoughts!

[Anita Bower]

Please tell me what to do! :)

I've been playing with this on and off today and I don't think there is a simple fix. The BG in the original is just too dark so to make it white without wrecking the colors of the flowers, I think I'll have to do some serious fine detail masking and painting. If I ever do get this one figured out, I'll let you know.

In the mean time, please keep on with the suggestions if any come to mind.
if the dark bg is one of the problems, you might consider using textures to tone it down while preserving more of the original colors, etc. of the flowers themselves. flickr's textures for layers group has free textures and simple tutorials. of course, that will move the image out of this forum.

[Julie Kenward]

Good suggestions by everyone! I'm not sure I've ever seen this flower in person so it's really hard for me to figure out what to suggest but, as presented in the opening post, the first thing I thought of was that it didn't look "natural" so my suggestion would be that the colors are off or your lighting is flat??? Gosh, Ken, you've stumped me!

[Ken Childs]

Roman, your edit is definitely a step in the right direction. Anita, you may be right. To get anything nice out of this shot, I may have to go to OOTB thinking. :)

So you can see the starting point, here's a tight crop of the raw with the "as shot" white balance and no adjustments. The colors of the flowers are pretty close to what they really look like. It's a shot I should probably trash but I like the comp too much. Some things I should have mentioned in the OP: I rotated the image CCW and cloned out some imperfections on the petals and I cloned out the alligator clip at the base of the flower stems.

I think I know what I did wrong. When shooting with a black BG, I turn the foam core so it's angled away from the light and when shooting with a white BG, I turn it towards the light. For this series of shots, I think I angled the board away from the light. Duh. :o