Welcome to the site. I like what you captured here but a few questions crossed my mind. First I appreciate you posting the techs but you neglected to post the focal length at which the image was captured. As someone else mentioned it looks a little crunchy to me. I’m also wondering what was your focus point because at f/11 I would expect a decent amount of DOF but can’t seem to find a really sharp plane in the frame. Thanks for sharing such a beautiful scene.
John,
Funny you mention this information John, I am starting this image from scratch tonight. I realized I focus stacked this image in camera but never applied it in PS. This will be my first try at focus stacking in the real world. I’ve tried it 2 other times, just practicing in my yard. So the answer to your question, this image is a front flower focus. My new image will be, 3 images focus stacked at f/11. I am finding it never pays to cut corners and have more patience than I think I need.
@Youssef_Ismail since I started this image over, I realized I aded too much black in this image trying for a little more contrast in turn I think that is where the crunchy-ness came from as well as the image was starting to become out of focus in that area. Now I should have focus from front to back using my focus stacked images.
@Igor_Doncov I also found where I could make better adjustments in my yellows as you mentioned from the beginning while checking my brush adjustments in LR.
@Preston_Birdwell as much as I didn’t want to crop because of loosing size in my image, it certainly looks better loosing some of that empty upper right corner.
I am learning so much just from everyone’s simple and subtle suggestions. I will do my best to have this image ready for a fresh set of eyes.
Question.
Is there a way I can bring my LR image into PS as a smart-object? If so, is it possible to bring in 3 stacked smart-objects into PS for focus stacking?
Kind regards,
Chris
Yes you can bring it in as a smart object via PS / Edit In/ edit as Smart Object. This allows you to still make raw adjustments in PS, while also adding adjustment layers, etc. You can bring in more than one raw file as a smart object by selecting multiple files in Lightroom for “Edit as Smart Object”, and them stacking them as layers in PS. I do this quite frequently with dynamic range brackets for exposure blending. I find that as I go through the exposure blend, I often want to tweak raw files in some of the layers to make the blend easier.
But if you are doing it for focus stacking, you will have to rasterize the layers, meaning they are no longer smart objects. And if you want to align layers, they have to be rasterized too. For the purpose of focus stacking, I use Helicon Focus software, which allows you to export the focus blended image as a DNG raw file back into Lightroom. This allows you to tweak the output as if it was a raw file.
Ed,
Thanks for your technical advise. I will definitely look into and remember this info.
Hey Chris and welcome to NPN.
Nice image that captures the last of the wildflower season. In terms of improvements, I like your subtle edits so far. I agree with others about the micro-contrast or clarity. I think globally clarity could still come down a bit. In high detailed areas, like grass, I usually reduce micro-contrast so it feels less cluttered.
It looks like you brought down the blacks across the whole image. I liked the richer blacks in the forground, but felt they were too strong in the background and liked the softer effect on Rainier in the edits. Applying contrast adjustments selectively in this way can go a long way in communicating the depth of the scene. It helps the viewer move through the scene from a darker more contrasty foreground to a less detailed, lighter background.
I edited your photo very quickly using gradients to show the dark to light transition.
I’m out of Seattle. Hope to see you around.
Jamrs,
Thanks for taking the time to review my image. To be honest I have learned several techniques from the wonderful help of others in my first post, but still have a ways to go in learning what’s best for each individual image. After I submitted my last edits this last round I realized I should have let it marinate for a day or so before reposting. I’m trying to rush and that’s not good when learning new techniques. I did see exactly what you described and changed via my image a day later after my post. I greatly appreciate your suggestions and will continue to improve this image until I think it’s ready for print.
Kind regards,