Cymbidium Orchid

[rudi]

FWIW Rudi...when I macro-shoot my orchids for the purposes of stacking and photo-merging for
extra large images:
I only sharpen in LR...when your that close, the petals do take-on a crystalline look that gives the
appearance of high noise levels, lending to an over-sharpened "look" to the flower, especially when
viewing at 100%.

Tis the nature of the beast!

Thanks for the input Wm, never ending learning ...

[rudi]

If you sharpen in LR, which is how I also do most of my flowers, it can help to apply a fairly substantial masking, e.g., >50%. That will reduce the crystalline, noisy appearance, but it won't of course make much difference for the edges, which is what caught my eye in this case.

I have recently started playing with PS smart sharpen for some macro work, but frankly, I don't feel I understand it well yet. I have do more reading about it and experiment more.

BTW, I find that stacking itself sometimes can create a crystalline appearance, along with false specular highlights. That is one reason I often use Zerene DMap for flowers. It seems to do better at preserving textures, at the cost of a tad less detail (not always noticeable) than PMax.

Interesting info Dan, thanks for that.

Normally I use USM for sharpening. I have been experimenting a bit with Nik sharpener recently, it is very easy to brush in the sharpening where I want, but in some cases it introduces more noise than USM.
The only sharpening aplied in these shots is default ACR settings and after downsizing Nik sharpener applied on the whole image, which was here about the same as applying USM at 50% 0,3 pix.

Have some stacking to PP, wonder how they will turn out....

[bnnrcn]

I like them very much Rudi If I had to choose I would choose #1 because of its artistic look . #2 is very nice too, it is centered though.

[rudi]

I like them very much Rudi If I had to choose I would choose #1 because of its artistic look . #2 is very nice too, it is centered though.

Thanks for comments Binnur, much appreciated.