BRASHLEY PHOTOGRAPHY

 

One of the things I love about photography is post-processing… and taking photos to a whole new dimension.  Lately I have been experimenting using Photoshop… which I am slowly becoming conversant with.

The above image started out… being rather bland and lacking colour.

And I wanted to make those roses more apricot in colour… so below is my processing techniques.

Lightroom Part 1

Spot Removal Tool

• Spot removal on some blemishes of the roses..

Camera Calibration

• Camera profile set to Camera Landscape

Basic Panel

• Exposure lowered to -0.71
• Contrast increased to +24
• Highlights lowered to -52
• Shadows increased to +38
• Whites increased to +29
• Blacks lowered to -38
• Clarity set to +31

Details Panel

• Sharpening set to 102
• Edge Masking set to 76
• Luminance Smoothing set to 12

Edited in Photoshop as a smart object

 

 

Photoshop

• Added a gradient Fill Layer black to white – Soft Light blending mode and opacity set at 30%.
• Created new layer, filled with white and added a cloud difference filter – Soft light blending mode and opacity set at 37% – layer mask created and using a soft brush (black) set at 82% opacity brushed over the roses – to remove the cloud difference from the roses.
• Created a Colour Adjustment Layer and used an orange colour  – Colour blending mode used and an opacity of 53%
• Saved image – which resulted in image being re-imported back into Lightroom.

 

Lightroom Part 2

Radial Filter

• Added a radial filter and to create a vignette played around with the sliders until I achieved what I wanted.

Crop Tool

• Cropped image so that the two roses were the subject of the photograph

Hue/Saturation/Luminance Panel

• Red hue shift increased to +7
• Red saturation shift lowered to -2
• Orange hue shift lowered to -2

Radial Filters

• Added several radial filters just to highlight the petals on the roses are various exposures.

Brush Tool

• Added a couple of brush strokes as certain parts were of a pink shade… so I changed the temperature/tint so that these parts became more orange.

Spot Removal Tool

• There was a small branch on the right-hand side of the photograph half way up… used the spot healing brush set to clone to remove the branch.

Details Panel

• Sharpening set to 73
• Edge masking set to 74
• Luminance Smoothing set to 13

Effects Panel

• Post-crop Vignette lowered to -55

 

A special thanks has to go to Paul Barson, who gave me the inspiration and the tip of how to use a Cloud Difference Filter and colour adjustment layers in your photograph … You can see more of Paul’s beautiful flower photography on his  Facebook Page.