 Jimmy W. Kennington |
Enhancing Flowers What is the best way to make a flower picture sharper, and bring out the color?
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Samuel Smith |
time of day?
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Richard Lynch |
If we could see the image in question there would probably be a better answer. Enhancement depends on first maximizing the capture (by setting black and white points and color balancing your image), and then on making enhancements to the image that make sense for the specific content. For example, some images may need an increase in contrast, others may need less. Some may need noise reduction, and others sharpening. Soft focus effects sometimes work nicely with flowers, but not all the time -- and there are different ways to apply those effects. Sharpening itself can be applied in several ways: using Unsharp Mask as a local contrast enhancement or as an edge sharpener on images with low contrast, or by using manual sharpening techniques that actually reduce contrast while sharpening for images that already have strong contrast. It isn't as easy as just assuming there is one set of corrections that will work best for every flower. The Levels correction and color balancing techniques I teach in my courses will work on virtually any image, but even then there are exceptions and you either have to know what they are or how to compensate. Sometimes something as simple as opening Hue/saturation and moving the Saturation slider 10-20 points to the right will make an enormous positive change in an image, and that same movement on another image might over-saturate and fragment color. If you post the image, I can make a few specific suggestions.
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Mark Feldstein |
If we take the sunflower shot in your gallery as an example, and assuming you shoot digitally rather than with film, then I suggest you spend more time shooting rather than fixing. To do that, here's a couple of tips. I can sort of see what you mean by having problems with sharpness and color saturation, although the sunflower is a nice shot (along with some others in your gallery too). So, first, don't shoot flowers in direct sunlight. That will wash out the highlights and without any shadows, very subtle shadows, you're going to blow out details. Second, try putting a translucent light tent of some sort over your subject(s). That will diffuse the light and you'll likely see a lot more detail appear in the highlight areas. Third, and you can also try this in PS I suppose, but a bit of a warming filter, like an 81A or even an 81B will help brighten colors and produce better color saturation. I do that a lot shooting produce for publications, although I still shoot film, mostly transparency stock and some C-41 color negative films. As Rich said too, over saturation (adding too much color) blows out details as well. Using a higher f-stop, working up in the range of f16 or even higher, will produce better sharpness, but sharpness is based on a lot of factors including the lens, f-stop, shutter speed and whether you're working off a tripod or not. I usually use a tripod to shoot agricultural work, more often than not a view camera that produces a 4x5 transparency that in turn produces higher resolution. Being able to push/pull the film in the lab helps increase and decrease contrast which in turn, will contribute to or diminish sharpness as well. Lastly, having a spray bottle with water helps rejuvenate a parched plant in late afternoon, gives it a bit more life and makes for a nice effect sometime with water droplets glistening in the afternoon sunshine (under a light tent/translucent panel).
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Jimmy W. Kennington |
Hey guys and thank for the feed back. Im going to go and try it (maybe later, now its almost 10 pm). Thanks again, Jimmy Kennington
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Erin Johnson |
pick a colorful one and use a prime lens and make sure its in focus. "take it bright"
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