A visit to the dark side

[billtils]

Things have a habit of not going quite where you expect. I recently took part in an online workshop on flower photography looking for hints and tips on how to take better images. There were several, some old, some new, but much to my surprise, the presenter spent quite a bit of time on her creative post-processing work. I've never really like the "photoshop" driven "creative art" side of photography but really enjoyed what she was doing.

I decided to set aside my prejudices and have a go - I've warmed a bit but still feel there's something not quite legit about it all ...


Here's one of my first efforts. C&C on the image and on the concept welcome.


Bill


Floral triptych:





The processing was all done in Affinity Photo.

[royent]

I'd like to see the images before you processed them as well
Roy

[billtils]

I'd like to see the images before you processed them as well
Roy

Roy, the images inside the squares are the originals, other than cloning in the green stem in the LH image. I'm away from the desktop just now but if you like I'll upload the originals later.

It's a bit new to me so I didn't say much but the thing that drew me to this set up for a try at a triptych was whether these 3 flower heads make a better picture presented together than singly. The borders/frames on each image and the triptych are a side issue (and one that is on the to-do list).

[DanK]

They are showing up only as tiny thumbnails. Can you post another way?

But to answer the general question, I do a lot of flower photography, and leaving aside focus stacking, I usually to a fair amount of editing, even for the photos that I aim to have appear very natural. They generally require a good bit of cleanup, a lot of dodging and burning, edits to enhance texture, and sometimes adjustments to colors. For example, in the photo below, the green in the stems badly overpowered the image, drawing the eye away from the petals, so I adjusted the greens in two ways, reducing both luminance and saturation.

[billtils]

Dan

They are full size on my screen - i'll see if ai can debug.


Bill

[Geoff F]

That shows OK but as a group of three flowers instead of individual subjects, which would be better for close examination.

The individual flowers seem OK, as far as I can tell. Over exposure areas are the most common problem but you seem to have managed to cope with that issue. There is some shadow on the daffodil which looks more natural to some people while others prefer images to be shadow free.

Avoiding harsh sunlight often helps with excessive brightness/saturation. I often use a bit of fill flash to equal out any harsh contrast problems. Difflectors and reflectors can also help.