Calla Lily

[mactek]

First post to this forum.
Shot taken in my backyard on an overcast day.
Editing included: crop a bit off the top, minor sharpening, manual curves adjustment to bring out some of the texture in the white part of the flower, removed a couple of minor blemishes, downsize and convert to jpg. It seems to have lost some luster in the downsize/conversion... any tips?

mactek

EDIT: Fixed a speeling [sic] error.

[RodneyBlair]

You've pulled the hightlights up too high and washed out some of the detail in the whites. Start with your original and go easy on the curves adjustment. After downsizing, use USM settings of Radius: .05, Strength 500

Here is a quick edit for demonstration.

Rodney

[bcoultry]

I periodically lurk here without posting, but I had to say something, Rodney, about your USM settings because it could be harmful to people who might think you meant these settingsare a rule, which I strongly doubt you think at all.

To anyone who's still in the process of learning Photoshop, known affectionately by some of us as The Beast, USM settings depend on the bit depth, the dimensions, the amount of existing contrast, and a bunch of other things that seem to have momentarily slid out of my brain. 16-bit photos always seem to require higher settings than do 8-bit.

When in doubt, put everything to the far left except Amount, which you then slide all the way to the max. Then watch in the preview window as youpush the radius to the right. When the halo is a bit too much, leave the radius slider where it is and bring the amount slider back down until the picture looks properly--not overly--sharpened.

This is a good way to get started, but it's far from the only way of doing it.

Hope this helps anyone who's been fighting with The Beast.

--Barbara

I much prefer your original mactek. While your whites are bright, they certainly aren't blown out.

[mactek]

Thanks for the input. I took both sets of advise and did some more manipulation.
Here's another attempt. I always have a hard time determining when something is oversharpened. Many photos I see appear oversharpened to me.
I did get more detail in the whites though.
How's it look?

I much prefer your original mactek. While your whites are bright, they certainly aren't blown out.

Thanks, Chris
I usually try to make sure I don't have blown highlights, unless it's just a snapshot or an otherwise unusual photo.

mactek

[jesterDC]

I like both edits, but I'm curious. Both bring out the detail in the white of the flower, however, each had different effects on the green leaves. The leaves in Rodney's look darker than the original, where mactek's leaves appear lighter.

What did you two do that was different?

[mactek]

jesterDC wrote:

I like both edits, but I'm curious. Both bring out the detail in the white of the flower, however, each had different effects on the green leaves. The leaves in Rodney's look darker than the original, where mactek's leaves appear lighter.

What did you two do that was different?

In my first one I increased the saturation of the entire image. In the second edit, I only edited the white of the flower.

mactek

[Canna W]

Hi Mactek,

I think this is a lovely pic.

As someone who's grown arum lillies (the same or similarto these), this is my take.

I think they are very soft looking flowers, not at all crispy. I have therefore sharpened stem, undercarriage & orange bit, plus just the edges of the petal, leaving the inner petal bit as is. I've also sharpened the (front) leaves.

Please let me know if I've done the sharpening wrong - as I'm new to it.

BTW, big congrats on the new camera...

Canna.

[mactek]

Canna W wrote:

Hi Mactek,

I think this is a lovely pic.

As someone who's grown arum lillies (the same or similar to these), this is my take.

I think they are very soft looking flowers, not at all crispy. I have therefore sharpened stem, undercarriage & orange bit, plus just the edges of the petal, leaving the inner petal bit as is. I've also sharpened the (front) leaves.

Please let me know if I've done the sharpening wrong - as I'm new to it.

BTW, big congrats on the new camera...

Canna.

Thanks , Canna!

That's exactly the problem I was having with this. I wanted to see the texture in the white area, but didn't want it to look like crispy paper. Maybe I'll have another go at it...

mactek

[RodneyBlair]

Hi Mactek,

I prefer your second rendering much better. While your whites are not blown in the first post, they are bright enough that you've lost detail. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but not so much here. We have smoother highlight to shadow gradation in high quality prints so your first image may look good in print.

Our eyes see a much softer flower than we can capture in a close-up or macro shot. Most prefer to pull out as much detail as possible from their macros, but I prefer something in between what I notice with my eyes and what the camera can record. It is always a good idea to examine the flower closely with your eyes before shooting so that you will have an idea just exactly how much detail you actually saw with your eyes.

Rodney