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.
