milkweed 4 IMG_1590apew

Very impressive!I like how the fine details of the delicate hair come out against the dark background.I am curious as to how you achieve this;black backdrop or do you manage this in PP?In any case,beyond my skills...and most excellent image!

Meilleures salutations-Laurent

thanks- view large please

Hi Laurent,

Thanks-glad you like it!

To answer your question- not a lot of skill involved, really.  I'll try to go through the set up and work flow.  I do most of the flowers in a small room affectionately called "my dungeon"  The flower or subject is placed in some kind of holder on a cardboard box at a comfortable level for camera height. The camera is on a tripod.  The BG is a piece of black foam board, placed far enough behind the subject so that the flash doesn't reflect much on it. I keep it upright with a big clip. I always set shutter at 10 sec just to give me time to set off the flash in a couple of different positions. The flash is off camera and activated manually. I take anywhere from 3 to 10 shots of each position. I have the camera linked to the laptop so I can see full size after each exposure- to see what to try differently the next time (obviously can't be done outside). When processing the shot, first I crop it to what ever size looks pleasing. Next work on the black - it's never totally black, plus my sensor has several dead pixels which show up as blue and red spots when I sharpen the image and it's a nuisance to erase each one all the time, so, I use the lasso tool in PS to outline the image roughly, not too close to the image. Then refine tool to feather and smooth about 50%.   Then select>inverse so everything except the subject is selected then gradient tool set to pure black to fill the selected area. Then undo lasso tool, go to image>levels, adjust the black a little so any residual light near the edge of the subject is gone. Then go to image>adjustments>shadows highlights and make adjustments as I like.  Then enlarge to 50%,  filters>smart sharpen and adjust to what looks good - usually around 200 and 1.8.

Save this file in full then go to  perfect effects 8 (free download from on one software) I just started using this recently and it seems to be helpful, although not necessary) I chose the sharpen filter there- there are many choices, just chose what looks best. Then apply, then save that with a different file name. THEN, I need to resize for PN so I use  websharpener   from    http://www.andreasresch.at/2013/04/07/web-sharpener-better-sharpening-for-the-web/      can be used on any photo. (free) I usually set the size as 1500 - the largest PN allows and check everything except extra sharpening, and let it do its thing.  Save this with different file name (hence the w  after all my pn files) save it at a reasonable size - 400-500 range.  Then can be uploaded to pn.

Not much skill really involved, just pushing buttons, but I do make choices along the way.  Did I miss anything? Lemme know.

Amazing detail in the larger view! Very well done. Personally I would have cloned out the bit of branch on the upper left.

Agree with Dimitris about cloning the branch. Fine detail and sharp focus. Very well done.

Thank you so much for the very explicite walk through the process to achieve these amazing images.I am impressed;this is way beyond my skills and far more effort than I put in my images and I think I will  continue to chase my images here,support the odd frozen fingers and just follow your posts to enjoy these great flower images.

Merci et meilleures salutations-Laurent