Backlight Flash +

[Loose Canon]

I’ve done the three lighting scenario’s that I had in mind to do with these blooms so much to everyone’s delight, including my own, this will be the last floral shot from me for a while!

I suppose this may be a more “traditional” looking shot though it is lit from behind. The difference in this one is that I shot it in my diffusion cone so it is getting some gradient reflections back into it. So it is not exactly strictly backlit. Gives it a completely different look than what I had done previously.

F/22
1/200th
ISO 400
100mm Macro
Two lights fired. One wearing a snoot as a bit of fill on one side and behind and the other on the other side and behind wearing barn doors to help control the amount of light bouncing around the cone. Hard light hitting from behind and diffuse reflected light.

While I don’t see myself becoming a huge floral shooter it was fun working with the flowers and the light.

[Chri5]

Looks great and I think the amount of detail and sharpening is perfect in my opinion

[Loose Canon]

Thank you Chris.

The shot received capture sharpening and down-size sharpening only.

[Chri5]

Can you explain what capture sharpening is and downsize sharpening. I use the high pass filter for sharpening but Im trying to learn new sharpening techniques

[Shadowman]

Nice capture.

[Loose Canon]

Thank you John.

Chris have a peek at this. That should get you going.

[Manfred M]

Can you explain what capture sharpening is and downsize sharpening. I use the high pass filter for sharpening but Im trying to learn new sharpening techniques

Chris - sharpening is usually broken into three separate operations (and many will skip the second one). All sharpening operations should be performed when viewing the image at 100% size,

1. Import sharpening - a process that is used to the slight softness introduced to the image by the camera's anti-alias filter / creation of the image from the raw data.

2. In-process sharpening - sharpening parts of the image that need a bit of an additional "boost". I find that I tend to apply that to eyebrows, irises. Sometimes I will avoid sharpening parts of an image (night skies) to reduce the impact of digital noise. A noisy image is a bit difficult to sharpen because sharpening techniques tend to accentuate the noise in the image, especially in sky detail. Noise reduction techniques tends to blur pixels together, so trying to balance the two off can be a bit tricky.

Because this is done to very specific parts of an image, you need to use a pixel based editor, like Photoshop.

3. Output sharpening occurs when you resize the image for final output. I don't pay a lot of attention to this when I output to screen, as the end viewer could be looking at at it on a small laptop screen or a huge computer display. When I go to print I take a lot of care. Large print images are often upsampled, and this process introduces additional softening that needs to be handled before printing.

Most of my sharpening is done using the Unsharp Mask in Photoshop, although I will sometimes use the Smart Sharpen filter as well. I find that the high pass filter is a bit too "brute force" and while I have played with it, I don't use it.

With the Unsharp Mask, for import sharpening, I tend to start with a Radius value of around 1.0 (range - 0.8 - 1.2), Amount around 100% (range - 80% - 130%) and a Threshold setting of 0 (range - 0 - 3). With Smart Sharpen; I use it so rarely, I don't have don't have a defined workflow and I just go by eye.

With Photoshop CC, I will sometimes use the Motion Blur tool and the ACR dehaze tool. I never use the Sharpen, Sharpen More or Sharpen Edges tool, as they give me no control.


When shooting jpeg, I follow a similar workflow, but as the camera already does some sharpeing in the jpeg creation process, the amount of import sharpening is generally quite low. The in-process and output sharpening steps still apply.

[Manfred M]

Nice image, Terry.

I've started to (unsuccessfully so far) try some backlighting techniques with flowers frozen into blocks of ice.

I haven't got the transparency of the ice working at all, so time to do some more work on it.

[DanK]

Very nicely done. And thanks for posting the details. I hope this isn't the last we will see.

[Rob Ekins]

Very nice,

My favourite of the series.

[Loose Canon]

Chris, Manfred has nailed the answer your question. But if I may totally confuse the issue?

Canon, last I checked and could find it, recommended a particular Unsharp Mask setting in Adobe Photoshop for their RAW files to adjust to as a capture sharpening. The manufacturers don’t make this readily available. If you look around you will find that some folks like to add “capture sharpening” in the RAW conversion as well as, or as a substitute for, or in addition to sharpening in the pixel editor. I personally don’t limit myself to one or the other. If in RAW conversion it works, cool. And it usually does. In the pixel program the first thing in my flow is a Canon recommended (as far as I last knew) capture sharpen in Unsharp Mask. This may be in addition to a sharpen in ACR. If it looks good and brings it home at and over 100% then cool. If not just a quick backtrack. This is capture sharpening and now I’m ready to get down with continuing the work! So when I zoom to a million% to edit I get a good idea of what I am working with.

If you don’t use these programs it is likely to be a horse of a different color, which is why I wouldn’t recommend any generic settings! Or even the one’s I use for that matter.

Creative or In-Process sharpening I use (I hope) sparingly but I do use it often. Careful here. I typically edit for full res and not necessarily for web output. I, like you Chris, use high pass (but only occasionally), Unsharp Mask, which I like globally, Smart Sharpen (rarely), and I love the sharpen tool. Which I think is a very undervalued tool for creative (local) sharpening. It, to me, has the most versatility especially when used with layers. It has the ability to brush in sharpening in any opacity, softness/hardness brush, and additively, and totally adjustable, locally undoable, and with layers opacity. Very cool! Again though, depends on your software.

Now, sometimes you may find that at full res things look awesome! Downsize for web and it goes to hell! Your creative (In-Process) sharpening has frosting, looks weird, artifacts, and isn’t doing it for you! Sharpening is basically an increase of contrast in the edges of the differing tones. When you downsize it pushes the pixels together and intensifies the edge contrast of said sharpening. Or, you may find that downsizing for web use makes the shot look better if it didn’t look so happy at full res! Cool!

In Photoshop you get a choice of downsize algorithms for this. I generally prefer very little output sharpening because I have done it in my edit and the downsizing brings it home because of the pixel squeeze. Much more sharpening in output and I’m over the top for viewing on the web! Like Manfred I’m not overly concerned as long as it looks okay downsized to post on the webbernet! My main concern is how the shot plays in full res because that is how I want to save my shots.

This is the Output Sharpening dilemma.

It might be of note (and durn sure is in my work flow) that a local contrast enhancement can do wonders for an appearance of sharpness. I use this type of technique as an “almost always” first choice instead of or in addition to sharpening.

Since sharpening a photo is essentially an increase in edge contrast, wonders can be done with local contrast enhancement. Less sharpening has to be done. Then the contrast change is more smooth as opposed to an abrupt edge contrast which is how sharpening works.

Whew!

Manfred, thank you for the comments on the shot.

And thank you for drawing me into this sharpening dialogue! I just wanted to shoot a stinking flower for crying out loud!

I wanted to say I wish you luck on your frozen flower idea! That is awesome! I have tried to make clear ice and with very little success. I found that there are available polymers that you can purchase that set clear and is used in product photography quite often and I’m guessing this would be the bomb for what you are thinking. Especially when a block of ice is required. It can be carved or pulled apart after setting, doesn’t melt, you get plenty of time to shoot, looks awesome… Sounds pretty cool but I haven’t gone that road. Yet!

Dan, as one of the most respected Floral/Macro Shooters I know of I was hoping you might give me the benefit of your take. Thank you sir.

Robbie? Very cool of you to give this your time. Thank you.

[DanK]

For people working within Lightroom, this can be simplified, because in terms of the final product, there is no difference between input sharpening and in-process (often called "creative") sharpening. The product from Lightroom isn't affected by where in the editing process you apply the edits; it applies the final total of the actions regardless. LR has a default input sharpening, which I leave as is, but it makes no difference. You can zero it out and add it to what you apply later, and if you change settings other than the amount (e.g., the radius), your later setting overrides the initial one.

Output sharpening is another beast entirely, and even if you stay within LR, it is handled separately, either by the export dialog or by the print settings.

As for methods: I mostly use LR's sharpening, photoshop's smart sharpening, and high-pass sharpening, in that order. I don't often use USM anymore; I use LR's as a substitute. I particularly like the masking feature in LR, as well as the option to hold the alt key while working, which changes the image to a gray scale that shows only the sharpening. Sometimes I find that it is worth trying a few different methods to see which works best on a given image.

[Chri5]

Chris, Manfred has nailed the answer your question. But if I may totally confuse the issue?

Don't Worry Ive been confused about photography for years.

[Chri5]

P.S. Thanks for the explanation Manfred. Very informative and you have made it understandable. a lot of tutorials are very hard to understand.

[bnnrcn]

It is strange that I can't see my comment that I thought I made earlier today about the image above I have been to the thread from time to time to follow other comments and I have just noticed that my comment is not available . I think something must have gone wrong while posting


This one looks great to me. I like the color, light and details very much

[Loose Canon]

Hi Binnur!

Thank you for commenting and thank you again for doing so twice! I’m glad you took the time to do so seeing as how much I value your opinion.

I kind of thought I was heading in the direction you were suggesting! Especially after the first post. I got what you were saying (I thought) and the three ideas I had to light a flower for these sessions was going to go in the direction you were speaking of. Or at least I figured it would. I thought I had an intention of going from kind of “dramatic” toward as you said a bit more “lively” with these sessions.

The series was about backlighting. Only. Added no intentional front lighting for the petals at least, other than reflected light for the last. I dunno! Really I had a notion to do this for a while now and the discussions I saw here got me off my dead hind end to set it up!

What I find interesting is folk’s take on the series. Or at least those who graced the series with their opinion! Some like the more dramatic, some prefer the more lively! That’s very fun and for sure what makes the “World go ‘Round”!

As for me? I tended toward a different lighting look, and sure got an idea of what might constitute that as far as flowers are concerned. In this case, I really didn’t want to shoot the flowers to appear as we see them because they have so much potential for alternatives. Which is why I have wanted to give this thing a shot.

Now, if you really want to see a real flower shooter doing his thing, check out DanK’s thread here (and I know you have Binnur)!

Thanks for sticking and helping me limp this thing along Binnur! It is hugely appreciated!