The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
After a several year hiatus from flower and macro photography, I decided to give it another try. I visited the Yampa Botanical Gardens in Steamboat Springs, Colorado to try out my new macro lens. I wandered around and found this single pretty blue flower bekoning me to take its image.
Technical Details
Nikon Z7 Macro 105 mm f/2.8 1/320 sec f/11 ISO 800 Edited in LR / PS
Gary, this is indeed a pretty flower. The depth of field is perfect. The green of the background compliments the hues of the flower and is nicely out of focus. Your macro lens did it for youl. I wish I was able to get my macro lens to do this for me. I have one question. Did you mask any of the flower. The calyx looks almost pasted on the stem and seems shaper than might be expected with the DOF? That is certainly a nit picking observation, forgive me. One other thought The amount of very dark background takes up a lot of the composition. I think a square crop might
strenthen the subject. I took this into PS and played with the background by using content aware fill and then decreasing the opacity of the fills to help soften the blackness. I know this is a stretch that many may not want to take. Gary, please know I think this is a beautiful shot.
Hi Gary, it looks like your new macro lens is doing quite well for you!
And it looks like you didn’t have to go too far to get the macro muscles flexing again after such a long period away from macro work.
Love the color, the details and the composition! And it looks like you managed the exposure very well, it’s lit very well with nothing being over exposed.
I agree that softening (lightening) the dark areas in the BG might help the image overall, it does seem ever so slightly stark in the transition between the darker and the lighter greens but that’s pretty subjective and nitpicking.
Barbara, happy to receive your thoughts and suggestions. Yes, I did mask the flower and added the stem to the mask in LR. Probably did not mask the stem as well as I have should have. Re the dark background, mentioned by you and Merv, I will take a look at that, along with a square crop.
Oh this is a beauty, Gary. I’d have stopped for it, too. Looks to be in the geranium family, but I’m no expert.
Things look muddy and strange on my MacBook so I downloaded it and voila - it looked crisper and with more detail and color separation in Photoshop. When I checked the Color space it was at ProPhoto RGB which is my default for working on images, but it’s not the right thing for web display. When you save out a jpeg always use the SRGB setting because that is internet standard for color rendition/display. The only thing I did to your photo was raise the blacks by using a luminosity mask to select the darkest areas (darks 3 in the TK8 panel) and then put them into a layer set to Screen and then set the opacity at 45%. Then I exported as a high-quality jpeg with an SRGB color setting/space.
Anyway…you got some great detail and color in this perfect little blossom and I thought it deserved to be seen. Thanks for posting it and diving into macro once again.
Kristen, thanks for commenting. I do my exports to NPN through PS Export, set to SRB, so I am not sure why it remains Pro Photo. However, I just reset Quick Export to jpg and will try that on my next submission.
Hm, I don’t know why either. When there is a conflict Photoshop asks if you want to convert to your standard color space or use the embedded and it didn’t ask me that, just opened.
