Oak Fern

Image Critiques Flora Critiques
1

Oak Fern
Oak Fern2000×1333 1.47 MB

Looking down at some fresh Gymnocarpium dryopteris and Canada mayflower leaves. These ferns are small and delicate and produce fronds all summer and so stay this bright lime green. They are soft and easily bruised and love damp, cool forests. A similar tri-pinnate fern is Bracken and it is much bigger and darker and can thrive in dry, sandy areas like parking lots and roadsides.

I noticed the ferns growing in profusion around the trail and especially between it and the river. It was so delicate that I had to stop and study it for a while. Then I noticed this couplet off on its own and pointed the camera straight down. I liked how the three wildflower leaves echoed the triangular shapes in the fern itself.

Specific Feedback Requested

Any ideas for improvement welcome.

Technical Details

Tripod and CPL

image

Lightroom for an initial crop & rotation, lens correction, tonal adjustments, texture, clarity, sharpening & nr. Also tamed the greens in calibration and in HSL. Photoshop for some strategic clone stamping and then I used some zone and color masks to tease apart the various hues in the leaf litter and in the fern itself - color masking was especially useful here - so precise. Also ran a clarity action just for the greens using a color mask.

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Kris: Wonderful little scene well seen, composed and captured. The color contrast is especially pleasing to me. Well done. >=))>

3

Nice capture, Kris. The colors are perfect - Green against the brown. Well done.

4

Thanks @Bill_Fach & @David_Bostock - I took a step or two beyond this little scene and then went right back. Working the colors in post was sort of pleasurable since it was fairly easy the more I work with the TK8 panel.