A flower by any other name

[billtils]

To while away the hours in various iterations of lockdown, I have been experimenting with pressed flowers. The first step was to find a shortcut to the traditional "put it between the pages of a heavy book and forget about it for many weeks" approach. Just like it does for cooking, the microwave provides an answer with no need for complex equipment or lengthy times in a press (a simple approach is described here - it's not the one I arrived at by trial and error, but close to it).


Here is a image of a campanula flower after 5 minutes:





While researching the pressing I came upon an article on the NIK Suite by DxO web page that had some interesting ideas, including using the solarisation filter, so gave that a go too:






Finally, here's one of the un-pressed campanula:

[DanK]

Thanks for the tip. I will probably try this out. Did you use a light table?

[Manfred M]

Interesting technique, Bill. The colours in the first one seem more vivid than what I would normally expect from dried flowers.

Is this a result of your drying technique or is this due to your work in post?

[billtils]

Thanks for the tip. I will probably try this out. Did you use a light table?

Yes Dan, I did use one.

You can buy microwave-proof presses but I just sandwich the flower between a couple of layers of kitchen roll, set it on a plastic picnic plate, place another on top, then pop it into the microwave with a large bowl of water (for the weight) on top and zap for 5 minutes. If I get more serious about this I'll may invest in a proper press ...

[billtils]

Interesting technique, Bill. The colours in the first one seem more vivid than what I would normally expect from dried flowers.

Is this a result of your drying technique or is this due to your work in post?

The colour image had minimum tweaking - just a tad of ProContrast when I was in NIK anyway. I think that the technique may preserve more colour than the traditional pressing process but haven't tried the long and slow version ... so can't really comment.

It was shot placed on a light table at full strength, and with reduced intensity flash bounced off the white ceiling.

[xpatUSA]

... then pop it into the microwave with a large bowl of water (for the weight) on top ...

Interesting that the water in the bowl doesn't divert too much energy from the flower itself ...

[billtils]

Interesting that the water in the bowl doesn't divert too much energy from the flower itself ...

The starting point was safe and heavy and a large bowl of water met the specification

[Astro]

Thanks for the 'push' Bill.... I saw something about the microwave technique for pressing flowers a few months back, made a mental note to follow up and didn't
So I have just tried your 'recipe' on a flower from the garden and now have a specimen nicely prepared waiting for me to play around with tomorrow... very neat!

[billtils]

Thanks for the 'push' Bill.... I saw something about the microwave technique for pressing flowers a few months back, made a mental note to follow up and didn't
So I have just tried your 'recipe' on a flower from the garden and now have a specimen nicely prepared waiting for me to play around with tomorrow... very neat!

Glad it worked - look forward to seeing the results!