Geranium

[DanK]

This one caused me all sorts of problems because I didn't get the background right in camera. It's a stack of about 6 images, stacked with Zerene DMap, then touched up with Zerene PMax, then edited in Lightroom, and finally a lot of cleanup in Photoshop. C&C welcome, as always.

[JohnRostron]

This one caused me all sorts of problems because I didn't get the background right in camera.

Having just been doing something like this myself, I can appreciate the problems with the background. Focus Stacking documentation does not warn you that the OOF backgrounds often end up looking just weird! You need to start off with a very plain background.

Having said that, your final image of the flower looks just great. Could I ask: was the focussing done by adjusting the focus with the Lens, or by changing the distance?

John

[Donald]

For me this shows what colour photography should be about - beautiful colour. I think the composition is enhanced bu the angle at which the stem comes into the frame at the bottom. It gives the picture soemthign that it would not have had, in my opinion, if the stem just came straight up into the picture.

The one thing I do find distracting is that 'lump' at the top of the stem behind the lowest flower petal. It keeps dragging my eye towartds it.

[IzzieK]

Dan to me this has the painterly effect...very nicely done...

[Shadowman]

Nicely done, receding petal seems to have chromatic aberration.

[DanK]

Thanks, all.

John, this was done without moving the camera. I always focus on the nearest point first, to make sure I don't make the framing too tight. I find the nearest point, then use live view with magnification to focus on it. Then I turn live view off and start shooting, focusing on point progressively farther back. Virtually all of the stacked shots (most of the flowers) on my site were done that way.

Donald, the lump is a cluster of new buds. I could try cloning them out.

John, I think what you are seeing is imperfect editing. What I did wrong is that I misguaged the writeness and brightness of the background, which is just a door jamb. I lightened and desaturated it in postprocessing, but I couldn't get a perfect selection, and I got artifacts around the edges of the flower, which I had to edit out. I hadn't thought that they might be CA. This was done with a lens that generally doesn't give me problems with CA (100mm L macro), but it could be. I'll have to play with that too.

Dan

[bnnrcn]

Great color Dan