You thought it was safe, didn’t you? No more mushroom pictures. You didn’t expect more did you?
MU-HAHAHAHAHA!
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Ah wait. No. That’s not it. Sorry.
Shrooms, shrooms, more lovely shrooms. Well, maybe not so lovely, but when I saw it from a little way off I knew I’d be right down. It’s a little past its prime and in an unconventional setting, but that’s kind of what made me take the time. I wanted a little character for a change and this gave me plenty. I have no idea what it is, but the birch tree it’s growing out of made for an excellent platform even if the background is a little busy. There is natural dappled sunlight in the scene that I also liked.
Specific Feedback Requested
Too weird? And I really did try to make that background less distracting both in the field and in post. There was only so much I could do. Deal breaker?
Technical Details
Tripod and CPL
Focus bracketing using the 0/+ method starting at the edge of the cap - 4 step
I can’t remember how many images - between 20 and 30 probably
Lr for initial work to try to balance the crazy tonal range and to reduce the magenta/purple in the shadows by adjusting wb and working the color channels. A bit of a crop and then
Zerene for stacking and retouching. DMap base with PMax details.
Photoshop to blur the background more after using cloning and color painting as well. Ran a clarity action and restricted it to the mushroom and the bark where it’s fruiting. D&B on the mushroom itself for contour. Raised the mid-tones and whites on the bark.
I really am glad you saw this! I love where this shroom decided to set up house. Very unique, and thriving-looking. The blur behind the shroom is perfectly situated…the little one really stands out.
What a lovely tiny scene. Great job bringing it to life for us.
Thanks @Mark_Muller - mushrooms are exploiters extraordinaire! Where there is a niche, there is a way and they find it. Alas, they are basically done their fruiting for the season. It was below freezing again last night and my walk in the woods the other day was pretty mushroom depleted.
I do like this one Kristen, even though it is a mushroom . The beauty of it to me is the ageing of the mushroom so that it is not a perfect pose (as in SOOOO many fungi photos) and is much more typical of those that I come across. The way it has grown, the clarity of the mushroom itself, the moss leading up to it, and the moss in the backgropund curling over the old tree trunk really makes this one. Cheers.
I like this one a lot. It is great that it has passed its best times, there are a lot more interest in such type of images than capturing a perfect beauty. The BG is OK and the part of the birch tree where it is situated is perfect.
Thanks @Phil_G & @Ola_Jovall - I am trying to shed my need for only perfect specimens and find the quirky, too. Last year one of my favorite mushroom shots was a relative tatterdemalion as well. I guess character speaks louder than beauty.
What a great find and capture, Kris. Amazing how nature works sometimes. Wonderful details and I like the composition, with the mushroom having a nice brown BG for the orange/yellow subject.
Thanks @Shirley_Freeman - it was a pretty wonderful mushroom season and this is a favorite. I have an amanita near a birch log, but not actually fruiting out of it so this one is special.
Thanks @David_Starr - glad you liked this one. I don’t have many fruiting like this so it is kind of distinctive.
I’m using the Prosumer version of Zerene (jeez I hate that word). I’ve had it so long that I can’t remember what I paid for it, but it gets you all the features of the Pro version, but it’s priced for individuals and amateurs rather than institutions and people who get paid for this. The interface is antiquated, but the software works amazingly well, especially for big stacks when you can use slabbing. Anything over 30 images is suitable for slabbing.
Thanks Kristen,
From what I can see the Personal version is $89 and the Prosumer version is $189.
I will have look into the what the differences are between the versions.
I will need to educate myself some before I’ll be able to compare though. I’m not sure what “slabbing” is.
Thanks for your help.
Slabbing is basically making substacks. Its main purpose is to save you time during the retouching process by reducing the number of source images you have to sort through to get the bit of detail and/or background you want to retouch your target image with. It is time-consuming to have to search through 20, 50, 100 images to find the right one. So making substacks reduces that by a lot. Say you have 50 images and you set the slabbing to make 10 images with a 3-image overlap you’ll end up with around 10 substack images you can then stack into one and also use for source images for retouching. If you’re not using more than say 20 shots to make your stacks, it’s not that critical, but the way Zerene automates it sure does save time in the end.
Also substacks are easier to control in some ways than full stacks with dozens of shots. The alignment gets easier as does the work to control contrast thresholds and Estimation & Smoothing radiuses (for DMap stacks). I’ve only started playing with those variables, but it’s interesting.
Here’s a deeper dive discussion if you’re interested -
. The beauty of it to me is the ageing of the mushroom so that it is not a perfect pose (as in SOOOO many fungi photos) and is much more typical of those that I come across. The way it has grown, the clarity of the mushroom itself, the moss leading up to it, and the moss in the backgropund curling over the old tree trunk really makes this one. Cheers.