Corn or Flanders Poppy

[Anita Bower]

I grew these poppies for the first time this year. They only last a day or two, and their fleeting beauty brings joy.

Nikon D300; Tamron 3.5-6.3 18-200mm at 52mm, f32 ("relative"), 1/20 to 1/80 sec., ISO 800 (my mistake--forgot to change it); indoors, natural light with foam reflectors, tripod, manual focus, manual exposure.

I took 5-6 shots changing the shutter speed to give me various exposures. In Photoshop 7, I started with the lightest image to get the whitest BG, then using layers, masks, and brush tool I painted in the details. Merged all, ran Topaz Denoise, did a high pass sharpening and soft light blend. Slight crop.

I hope all this still qualifies the image for this forum. I'm having fun trying new photographic techniques.:D

C & C welcome!

[Julie Kenward]

Beautiful image, Anita! Yes, as long as the flower still looks like the flower, you're good! What a beautiful perspective/angle you've chosen here. It really separates this from so many other flower images. I also like the red/white/blue theme you have going. The reds seem a tiny heavy in places but only by a tiny bit and I'm sure that's more of the angle we're looking at than oversaturation. I find myself moving around in my chair like that is going to change what I see - very interesting!

[Anita Bower]

The reds seem a tiny heavy in places but only by a tiny bit and I'm sure that's more of the angle we're looking at than oversaturation.

Thanks for your comment! When posting the EXIF data I was trying to remember why I didn't use the macro lens. It was because of the angle I wanted--couldn't do it with the macro.
Do you think I should reduce the red some? If so, how would you suggest I go about it? Using "selective color'?

[Jay Sheinfield]

Hi Anita,

Attractive and unusual composition. I took the liberty of trying to capture more detail in flower and exaggerated it a bit for demo purposes. I hope it's ok..............there is no preview function in the reply, so I can't see the final result. If my image is not helpful, my apologies.
Very nice work.

[Anita Bower]

Hi Anita,

Attractive and unusual composition. I took the liberty of trying to capture more detail in flower and exaggerated it a bit for demo purposes. I hope it's ok..............there is no preview function in the reply, so I can't see the final result. If my image is not helpful, my apologies.
Very nice work.

Jay: Thank you for making improvements on my photo. I never mind that sort of help. I do like your results and would like to know what you did. As for previewing replies--in to lower right hand of the screen there is a tab for "go advanced." If you click on it, you will get a preview option.

[Jay Sheinfield]

Anita,

I find that when bold colors look a little a bit blocked that adding tonal contrast helps provide detail and better "perceived" color. Saying that, I use Niks "Color Effects Pro" pluggin in my Nikon Capture NX2 software. The specific feature within Color Effects Pro is Tonal Contrast. There is a similar pluggin available for Photoshop and Lightroom. Also, Viveza 2 pluggin also has a feature called "structure" which is similar. In your photo I added contrast to the mid-tones and shadow tones of the red. There is probably a way to do it in PS without pluggins but my skills there are lacking. Maybe someone else can help more with PS. Hope that helps.......................Jay

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Anita,
What struck me about this one first.....was the exquisite presentation! Very unusual and very well done! You can also try going into selective color.....and add cyan to the red channel......or even just go into color balance and add cyan. I do like how Jay added depth to the poppies (just remember to post how you did it Jay!....great job!)......so that direction works for me. Minor tweaks to an outstanding comp!

[Ken Childs]

Anita, this presentation looks great! I like Jay's tweak but I think I'd really prefer something between his and your edit. The reds look fine to me. The jury in my brain is still out about the shadow of the vase. I may like it better without that shadow but I won't know until I see it that way. :)

[dawn campbell]

Interesting perspective on this Anita. Not one I think I've seen before. I like the combination of the cobalt blue vase with the bright colors of the poppies. The fact the flowers are less than perfect in formation serves to add interest as well. I'm just out of lurk status so a bit reluctant to be too forward in any critique, but it seems to me there's a bit of fringing around the edge of the poppies. Were they cut out from the background or the background lightened? anyway, an interesting shot.

[Anita Bower]

I'm just out of lurk status so a bit reluctant to be too forward in any critique, but it seems to me there's a bit of fringing around the edge of the poppies. Were they cut out from the background or the background lightened? anyway, an interesting shot.

I appreciate your comments. Glad you are coming out of lurk. Here is what I did, which may explain some fringing: I took 5-6 shots changing the shutter speed to give me various exposures. In Photoshop 7, I started with the lightest image to get the whitest BG, then using layers, masks, and brush tool I painted in the details.

[Anita Bower]

I may like it better without that shadow but I won't know until I see it that way. :)

I think I will work with lightening the shadow and see what I think. Thanks, as always.

[Anita Bower]

Thank you, Jay and Roman. I will experiment. I enjoy improving my photography through suggestions.

[dawn campbell]

Hi Anita :)

I've been spending some time of late trying to perfect a clean white background. What I found works pretty well for a setup is to place the flowers/vase on white foamcore boards (poster board you can get for $5 at any art or stationery store, including Walmart, etc.) using an add'l one for the background. If you place the flowers close to the forward edge of the bottom one, there is room to place some offcamera flashes in behind the flowers to blast the background board. I set the flashes to manual to control them better and make sure the spill doesn't overexpose the flowers. I don't know if that helps. I've attached an example with this kind of setup.

[Anita Bower]

Hi Anita :)

I've been spending some time of late trying to perfect a clean white background. What I found works pretty well for a setup is to place the flowers/vase on white foamcore boards (poster board you can get for $5 at any art or stationery store, including Walmart, etc.) using an add'l one for the background. If you place the flowers close to the forward edge of the bottom one, there is room to place some offcamera flashes in behind the flowers to blast the background board. I set the flashes to manual to control them better and make sure the spill doesn't overexpose the flowers. I don't know if that helps. I've attached an example with this kind of setup.

Dawn: I knew I recognized your thumbnail photo, but just now figured out where I'd seen it before. You are Dawn from dawn leblanc photography. I've been following your blog for a couple of years and love your work! So glad to see you here.
I appreciate your description of how you approach white BGs, and the example posted is gorgeous. Very white BG and translucent petals. I'm trying to achieve the same without use of flash, as flash and I haven't had a happy relationship so far. My setup is the same as yours, except without the flash. In fact, I don't own an off camera flash for my current camera.
Look forward to seeing some of your images posted here.

[dawn campbell]

Yes, I'm "that" dawn. My married name is Campbell, but there are millions of Campbells, so when I went to set up a website, I opted to revert back to my maiden name which is "LeBlanc". Thanks for the welcome!

It may be my lack of skill with respect to whites, but my own experience (and it seems that of many others) has been that it is very difficult to get clean whites without an some lighting on the background. One thing you could try is getting a cheap lightbox off ebay and using that to place flowers on with it turned on. When I say "lightbox", I mean a smallish box with an interior light (not a light tent)--like those used to look at xrays (and used to be used for viewing film), like this:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/36s3nbo

(this links to an ebay item)

I used such a setup for this: http://www.pbase.com/dawnleblanc/image/111100709

They limit one in terms of composition, but if you use spot metering and lock in the exposure, you can get nice clean whites at a relatively cheap price.

Are you using any lights at all?

dawn

[Anita Bower]

They limit one in terms of composition, but if you use spot metering and lock in the exposure, you can get nice clean whites at a relatively cheap price.

Are you using any lights at all?

dawn

I appreciate the links you sent, especially the one to the flower image that used a light box. I like seeing the results.
And, no, I'm not using any lights at the moment, only window light.

[Ken Childs]

I think I will work with lightening the shadow and see what I think. Thanks, as always.

I just played with the shadow in PS and think it's better with it there but lightened a bit. :)

[Anita Bower]

I just played with the shadow in PS and think it's better with it there but lightened a bit. :)

Ken: I tried lightening the shadow, but didn't like the results--I couldn't make it look natural, especially where the shadow met the vase. What steps did you take? By the way, I followed suggestions given and came up with something between my original post and Jay's repost.

[Ken Childs]

If I remember correctly, you're using PS 7 so you may not have these tools.
I selected the shadow with the quick selection tool which did an OK job but selected slightly more than I wanted so switched to quick mask and used the eraser tool to fine tune the selection. Then I used the shadow/highlight tool to slightly lighten the shadow.