Sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale)

[Anita Bower]

Taken indoors, natural light, tripod, Nikon D300, Sigma 105mm macro, f51, 4 sec., ISO 200, manual focus (live view).

PP in Elements 7 and PS7: crop, clone, curves, contrast, High Pass, selective color, saturation, Viveza, Color Efex Pro (darken/lighten center).

[John Storjohann]

Anita, this is beautiful. Great color, wonderful background, nice curve of the stem through the frame...if it were mine I might add a little more to the RHS of the frame so the bloom has space to lean into....really liking your recent macro work. Well done!

[Anita Bower]

Anita, this is beautiful. Great color, wonderful background, nice curve of the stem through the frame...if it were mine I might add a little more to the RHS of the frame so the bloom has space to lean into....really liking your recent macro work. Well done!
Thank you, John. Interestingly enough, this image began with a lot more room on the right. Will see what others think. I'm undecided.

[Ken Childs]

Hey Anita, lovely colors and BG here! The flower looks good although the area around the base of the petals looks a bit hazy to me. I ran high pass sharpening on just that area and thought it looked better. As to the crop, I agree that more room on the right would look better and while you're at it, try adding some on top and removing a sliver from the left. Nicely done overall! :S3:

[Anita Bower]

Is this what people had in mind? I can't seem to sharpen the stem.

[Ron Sprunger]

F/51? Really? It's a great image, but I think I personally prefer the OP. I love the green BG -- you say natural light, but it looks as if you had some focused light behind the flower, or did you do that with Viveza. Extremely well done. I like it a lot.

[Anita Bower]

F/51? Really? It's a great image, but I think I personally prefer the OP. I love the green BG -- you say natural light, but it looks as if you had some focused light behind the flower, or did you do that with Viveza. Extremely well done. I like it a lot.
Thanks for your input. I, too, prefer the OP. Re. the f stop. My lens f stop: it is confusing. This lens records the "effective f stop" which I can't explain. For an explanation go to <http://www.jeffree.co.uk/pages/macro-faqs.html> and read the next to the last question and answer.<o:p></o:p>

[Anita Bower]

-- you say natural light, but it looks as if you had some focused light behind the flower, or did you do that with Viveza..
I forgot to answer this question. I used Nik Efex Pro filter Darken/Lighten Center.

[denise ippolito]

Anita, I prefer the composition of the one in pane #5. I like the color combo. I might selectively sharpen the stem and around the base of the petals. You could also try Nik Tonal Contrast at a reduced opacity and selectively add it only to a few key areas to see if that helps.

[Ken Childs]

Is this what people had in mind? I can't seem to sharpen the stem.
Anita, I definitely like this composition better!
I sharpened the area around the base of the petals and thought it looked better. I did this by loosely selecting that area with the Lasso Tool with a Feather of 20 px...if you're working on the larger original, you'll want to use a bigger Feather setting. Open a new layer copy (ctrl + j) and apply High Pass sharpening.

[Anita Bower]

Anita, I definitely like this composition better!
I sharpened the area around the base of the petals and thought it looked better. I did this by loosely selecting that area with the Lasso Tool with a Feather of 20 px...if you're working on the larger original, you'll want to use a bigger Feather setting. Open a new layer copy (ctrl + j) and apply High Pass sharpening.
Thanks! Most favor the second version. I've tried sharpening using high pass, high pass your way (thanks for the tip re. selecting this way:bg3:), and using Nik Tonal Contrast as Denise suggested. I'm not getting results I like. With high pass, I get black dots. Oh well. :bugeyed: I do so much appreciate your efforts. :bg3:

[Ken Childs]

Anita, I just applied high pass sharpening to this one....let me know what you think. Maybe your settings are different than what I'm using. I have the radius as 10 px and I use Soft Light as the blend mode. Then I play with the opacity on the High Pass layer to get it where I want.


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[Steve Maxson]

Hi Anita. There's a lot to like here - the tilt of the flower, the soft light that brings out the texture in the flower's center, and the background with the diffuse "halo" you created behind the flower. I think I prefer the comp in your repost and I like what Ken has done in pane #12. This is very nicely done!

[Anita Bower]

I made another attempt at selective high pass sharpening following Ken's instructions. This time I did it in Elements 7 instead of PS7, thinking the newer software might work better. It did! Here is my version, but with a different crop which I imagine no one will like, but which appeals to me. :t3 I also sharpened the version with more space on the right.

[Ron Sprunger]

Anita, I like it a lot. Of course, I liked the OP:S3: I was never bothered by the stem anyway, and now you've improved the top and the left petal noticeably, while retaining the wonderful glow you had in the OP. I think that glow was largely lost in both #5 and #12. I have nothing against the added space on the right, but the wonderful light and added sharpness in this version are more important to me. Well done.

[Anita Bower]

Anita, I like it a lot. Of course, I liked the OP:S3: I was never bothered by the stem anyway, and now you've improved the top and the left petal noticeably, while retaining the wonderful glow you had in the OP. I think that glow was largely lost in both #5 and #12. I have nothing against the added space on the right, but the wonderful light and added sharpness in this version are more important to me. Well done.
Thank you, Ron. We are of one view on this. :S3: