Flowers from McCall - Post 1

I have been participating in a workshop called the Blossom Workshop at Love that Shot. It is very educational and I have learned so much about photographing flowers. I have never really photographed nature before. I find it beautiful and captivating... but have always been so busy photographing kids and babies that I never learned to capture flowers.

There is an art to photographing flowers. I think going into this workshop I thought it would be the same as photographing kids (well sorta) but I learned that it wasn't as easy to photograph a flower. It seems like you have to find that "perfect" flower that has non wilted petals and is sitting perfectly against a beautiful background already. It's not like you can pick up a flower and move it to another location if it is already rooted! :D

So I went on an adventure in McCall with my husband and we photographed flowers trying to find the perfect ones to capture. It was fun, educational and I think I finally got the hang of it. I will show you my before and afters and give you some tips on what I did to accomplish the final look.

ORIGINAL IMAGE SOOC

Nikon D90 ~ 50mm Lens ~ f/1.8 ~ ISO 500 ~ Exposure 1/125
My focus was on the center of the flower

AFTER

I cropped image and expanded the right edge to give it a banner look. Size is 5" x 2.5" Resolution 300
Sharpened the image
I smudged the background to give it added motion effect
I sharpened hand selected items mostly around the stem and center of the flower
I added a pastel filter using Nik Color Efex Software and adjusted the opacity
I added a foilage filter using Nik Color Efex and adjusted the opacity
I adjusted the contrast
I did darkened the outside of the background and lightned up the flower to bring attention to the flower
I found a quote I liked and added it to my photo.

ORIGINAL IMAGE SOOC

Nikon D90 ~ 50mm Lens ~ f/1.8 ~ ISO 500 ~ Exposure 1/50

AFTER

I used a combination of http://www.lovethatshot.com/ textures to create this effect. They are available for sale on their website. They are great textures to use for flowers. I love them and it saved me the time of having to find my own online. I didn't write down my steps on how I edited this but I played around quite a bit in order to get this final image. I did two different versions.