Dead flowers

[kat]

My flowers from Valentines Day are beyond alive anymore and since I had nothing better to do today while the kids napped..

The first one is just as I took and the second I added "blur".

Had a hard time getting a sharp image throughout. Played with the aperture but it just didn't seem to work...just got to that point of being too bright. Maybe too close to the lens?

[Marko]

I quite like the shot without the blur but I prefer how the petals are positioned in the shot with the blur. What aperture was this shot at?

[kat]

I used an aperture of 5.6 on these two.

Here is the blur one without the effect.

[Mad Aussie]

Do you have photoshop Kat?

If you do ... try this with that last shot (post #3) perhaps ...

1) Duplicate the layer so you have the image as a background and a new layer in the layers palette.
2) Add a layer mask to the new layer.
3) click the eyeball next to the new layer to turn it off for a bit and then click on the background layer.
4) apply a guassian blur to background layer ignoring everything except the petals. Get those petals blurred the way you want them.
5) Click the eyeball on the new layer again and select the layer mask
6) using your brush tool (select a decent sized soft brush) use black to 'paint' over the petals.

What will happen is the petals that are still in focus in the new layer will become invisible allowing the blurred petals to show through from underneath. At any time you can reverse the process by selecting white and painting again.

7) If necessary, select the new layer (not the layer mask time) and sharpen the stem and flower center etc.

[Marko]

I think I would have liked to have seen all elements tack tack sharp. F-22 or F-32 (the smallest aperture) would have done that trick but hindsight is always 20/20.

[Michael Van der Tol]

Hi Kat,

One other thing to try with this shot is to slightly over expose it a bit more (~1.5 stops). This should turn your background to pure white.

Regards,

MikeV