silver maple raindrops

[Dennis Bishop]

Of the nine shots that comprise this image, eight were taken the same morning as the columbine image shot. The columbine was in a sheltered area, but this tree was not, and a fairly persistent breeze off Lake Erie was intermittently swaying the branches. Nevertheless, I decided to try a focus-stacked sequence and waited for a lull in the breeze. Unfortunately, it started up again part way through the sequence and affected the more distant shots. I handled part of that by cropping and the rest by masking and putting another image in the background.





Nikon D3s, ISO 400, f/8, 1/200 sec, 105mm macro lens

processing highlights

• Topaz Simplify -- saved watercolor preset masked off of raindrops
• Alien Skin Snap Art -- saved watercolor wash preset, Hard Light blend mode
• Nik Silver Efex -- The tree has been stressed, probably because of heavy pruning by the utility companies whose lines run through its crown. The result was a lot of reddish-orange in the leaves even before the shots were taken in early July. Advantage of this coloration was taken by adjusting the color sensitivity sliders in Silver Efex.
• Fractalius -- three black & white presets; Multiply, Divide, Multiply
• Snap Art Line Art and Simplify edges -- saved black & white presets, Multiply
• The upper right corner was heavily affected by movement of the branches. The image of rain in the woods is from a shot taken on Chincoteague Island in 2008, and there's likely not a maple tree in it. There also was no rain, so it was added using the Snow, Stars, & Rain texture by Belle Fleur. (On several previous occasions, I'd used the Add Noise feature and lots of additional steps in Photoshop to produce snow, but the Belle Fleur texture is so much faster, easier and very flexible.)
• flipped horizontally for composition
• gradient vignette

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Dennis,

Greetings. The water droplets have an interesting look, I think from the focus stacking. The stacking works particularly well on the overlapped leaves. The upper right corner doesn't work for me. It doesn't merge to a single image just a separate context. OOF regions provide a pretty strong depth cue. Squaring the OOF areas on the left with the crisp focus of the distant part on the right is pretty challenging. Thanks for posting.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Dennis Bishop]

Thanks for your comments, Michael. I knew that upper right corner was questionable. Before putting it there, I stamped all the layers and did some transforming to change the orientation. At least it was consistent with the rest of the image, but it seemed even more contrived than this did.

[Dennis Bishop]

What Michael said about the out-of-focus region in the upper left compared to the region in the upper right makes sense. Finally, I realized I should've put in an entire new background instead of just putting it in the upper right. Many thanks, Michael.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

You're welcome, Dennis. The additional bg works a lot better.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Cheryl Slechta]

Dennis, Michael identified and clearly conveyed what my misgivings were when I looked at the OP. I like the RP much better. Focus stacking in the wind - I'm impressed

[gary ellwein]

I am impressed with the wind hampered result. I also agree the redo with the consistent bg is the way to go.

[Diane Miller]

Fantastic image -- I love it!! Leaves and droplets are wonderful -- and stacking with wind -- kudos! I thought the trees peeking through in the UR were very interesting. The v2 also works for me, but I wonder if the BG elements could be a little lighter?

That BG could make a wonderful image on its own.

[Dennis Bishop]

. . . That BG could make a wonderful image on its own.

Thanks for your comments, Diane. If I remember right, I darkened the background to separate it better from the leaves.

I'd wondered about posting the background image (although it's processed well beyond what you can sort of see, here). The version in this image has only a single rain texture treatment beyond the conversion to B&W in Silver Efex. Stay tuned; I'll probably post the complete version of it next.