Hibiscus

[Dave Mills]

Another one from Longwood. I have photographed Hibiscus using many different compositions. It's a great flower to experiment with so I shot this angle last sat which seems like an obvious choice but I hadn't approached it that way. The red tips are sharp but look soft due to the fine hairs. Curious to know what others think...
Nikon D300,200mm macro, F22,1/60,-2/3 comp,twin lights,tripod mtd

[Ken Childs]

Dave, I'm glad you said something about those red tips because that's the one thing that looks off in the image. The rest looks fantastic, IMHO! Maybe selecting those tips with the hairs and going crazy with the sharpening could help. Try selecting them and giving them a couple rounds of "sharpen edges" and see what happens.

[Susan Candelario]

Hi Dave,
I love the texture in the petals, the bg, the comp and your use of the twin lights. I sharpened the tip of a bit, let's see what you think.

[Nick Palmieri]

Like the composition, diagonal presentation, and black BG. Why do the fine tips look soft?? Susan how did you sharpen them? LCE or USM???

[Dave Mills]

Hi Susan, Comparing the two there is a definate improvement. Interesting since they seem to be on the same plane as other areas that are sharp.
Thanks for the sharpening....

[kostas nianiopoulos]

i do have David this flower in my home and many times i have try to get those red thing on the clear , i try for this like every day i still i didnt make it ..

[Charles Wesley]

Dave,

Very nice image here. Know what you mean about the red tips here. trashed 10 images this week from the same color hibiscus from my backyard. It was a little windy but I used a diffusion panel to block it. Wish I knew how Susan sharpened your image...
___________________________

Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL
http://naturesphotographs.com

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Dave,
Nice and unusual comp. Susan nailed it in the repost.....will have to get her to chime in on the sharpening! ...and Charles.....that's why we are big fans of flash! Makes wind a little less influential and allows for f22 or higher!

[Julie Kenward]

Dave the textures and colors are lovely in this. Only thing I think I see that you might not have thought of is giving this a bit of CW rotation so the pistil is heading right up to the ULC.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Julie, will take a look at that...

[Susan Candelario]

Susan how did you sharpen them? LCE or USM???

I sometimes sharpen with this method. I have this as an action but here are the steps. Select the Channel that has the most contrast and duplicate it, by either right clicking on the channel or dragging it to the bottom of the channels panel to the create new channel icon (it's the one next to the trash can) Go to find edges and invert it by going to - Image - adjustments - invert - Go to Filters - Other - Maximun - and set the radius to a couple of pixels - Go to Filters - Noise - Median - Set the Radius to around 4 pixels - Go to Filters - Gaussian Blur - Radius 2 to 3 pixels. You then do a Levels Adjustment. The white areas will be sharpened and the black ones will not. After applying the Levels adjustment you can select your bush and paint with black the areas that the adjustment did not completely black out if need be. And lastly apply USM to taste. This method only sharpens the edges without introducing noise or halos. I know it sound like a lot but recording it as an action makes the process run very smooth.
Finally I used the new much improved sharpen tool in CS5, lowered the opacity and brushed lightly on the tips. Before CS5 I had never used the tool due to the poor performance it produced, but in CS5 the algorithm that it employs seems to be pretty good.
Sorry for the long reply, but you asked for it. :D

[Nick Palmieri]

Thanks Susan. Maybe a moderator can put this in the tutorials section!

[Mike Moats]

Hey Dave, like the comp, details, and BG. Susan's repost took care of your only issue.