New Photo Contest- Drosophyllum lusitanicum seeds for the 5 best pictures

[CPlantaholic]

wow- thank you so much, Jeremiah!
There were some absolutely incredible pictures in this competition.
Larry, that is quite the setup- it takes a lot of creativity to come up with a pristine photo like that!

 

[Jefforever]

It would have looked like that whether I photostacked it or not. Photostacking just gives you more depth of field. I have wood slats on my deck, the sun shines through that illuminating just the plant, everything else was in shadows. I also backlit the plant with an external flash.

No wonder.... I thought you had a really small skylight window or something.

I used the same photostack thingy on my ping photo.

 

[cmm889]

if you guys have photoshop, theres an easy way to create depth of field using masked layers...

course photoshop costs a TON of money ( unless you bootleg it ) so if you dont have it thats totally understandable...

 

[adnedarn]

Depth of field meaning more in focus right? I'd like to work on that some.... I have photoshop.. but it's pretty old i think.. (7.0)

Also, I wonder about scottychaos's Sarr- that has had some color work done to it right? Or am I lol it looks neat with the brown bottom.. but color in the top.

Andrew

 

[DrWurm]

Oooh, I won! Thanks Jeremiah! I would love the Roridula seeds.

If anybody's curious, this is a photo of D. nitidula ssp. allanostigma x D. ericksoniae
It was taken in full sunlight, I "photostacked" about 5 images using CombineZ to get the increased depth of field.

Hey Larry, What's your setup for getting the different image focuses? I tried my hand at photostacking a while back, but I just ended up photosucking.

 

[larry]

Camera stays stationary, usually on a tripod. Focus on the closest part first, click shutter, change focus, click shutter, etc

It's really hard to focustack Droseras because there's so many parts at various distances, it confuses the program. Doing it manually in photoshop is also very tedious when dealing with Drosera.

 

[cmm889]

yeah masking layers is a much easier process than photo stacking appears to be, with photostacking it appears as though your creating a composite image. one thats basically an image where you focus a specific piece then shoot another and another and merge them to form one focused object... while that does work, its very tedious.

the process is actually more used when it comes to shooting landscapes where say... the sky is a cloudy hazy day but yet bright... or say there's snow on the ground... your going to shoot a shot where you are intending to get a good exposure on the foreground, and then one on the subject or horizon, and then one on the sky. then you merge the images together so that the entire image is evenly exposed... it typically looks great when you can do this successfully and a great skill to have...

for just creating a false depth of field its probably more work than you really need...

in photoshop all you have to do is shoot the original photograph completely in focus ( as much as possible ) and then all you have to do is create a duplicate layer... on this new layer do a "gaussian blur" the more blur you create the more difference in depth of field your finished product will have.

then you create whats called a "mask layer" this is the most used piece of editing for photographers more than likely. it allows you to select between layers what you want to be visible and invisible for the overall image.

so you do those 2 things, your left with Layer #1 blurred out, and Layer #2 completely in focus...
you set the mask layer. ( this is a short cut that is a square with a circle in the middle )

you would then. make sure your selected on a soft paintbrush with your color pallet, being black and white.

Anything you spray while your brush is selected as the 'white' color is going to disappear.. so wherever you mark on Layer#1 the Gaussian blur goes away, leaving you to see Layer#1 which is completely in focus.

* you use a soft brush so that your edges are soft and not hard, which allows you to create a more realistic edge of focus *

its easiest to roughly select out the subject matter with your 'white' brush and then come back in with a smaller sized ' black ' brush to finish the image.

I know those were very weird details... its hard to explain without images to give examples with...

if there's an interest I will post a real tutorial on it. or you can just PM me and i"ll set you up with some great resources...


-Chris

 

[tommyr]

Purpea:

Capensis:

 

[DrWurm]

yeah masking layers is a much easier process than photo stacking appears to be, with photostacking it appears as though your creating a composite image. one thats basically an image where you focus a specific piece then shoot another and another and merge them to form one focused object... while that does work, its very tedious.

the process is actually more used when it comes to shooting landscapes where say... the sky is a cloudy hazy day but yet bright... or say there's snow on the ground... your going to shoot a shot where you are intending to get a good exposure on the foreground, and then one on the subject or horizon, and then one on the sky. then you merge the images together so that the entire image is evenly exposed... it typically looks great when you can do this successfully and a great skill to have...

for just creating a false depth of field its probably more work than you really need...

in photoshop all you have to do is shoot the original photograph completely in focus ( as much as possible ) and then all you have to do is create a duplicate layer... on this new layer do a "gaussian blur" the more blur you create the more difference in depth of field your finished product will have.

then you create whats called a "mask layer" this is the most used piece of editing for photographers more than likely. it allows you to select between layers what you want to be visible and invisible for the overall image.

so you do those 2 things, your left with Layer #1 blurred out, and Layer #2 completely in focus...
you set the mask layer. ( this is a short cut that is a square with a circle in the middle )

you would then. make sure your selected on a soft paintbrush with your color pallet, being black and white.

Anything you spray while your brush is selected as the 'white' color is going to disappear.. so wherever you mark on Layer#1 the Gaussian blur goes away, leaving you to see Layer#1 which is completely in focus.

* you use a soft brush so that your edges are soft and not hard, which allows you to create a more realistic edge of focus *

its easiest to roughly select out the subject matter with your 'white' brush and then come back in with a smaller sized ' black ' brush to finish the image.

I know those were very weird details... its hard to explain without images to give examples with...

if there's an interest I will post a real tutorial on it. or you can just PM me and i"ll set you up with some great resources...


-Chris

Chris, if I'm not mistaken (I certainly could be), you're referring to minimizing DoF in an image with too much DoF. I take my macro photos with a reversed 50mm lens. This gives me substantial magnification, but my plane of focus becomes incredibly selective (a few millimeters). Therefore, I can't actually get the whole subject in focus in one shot, even if the subject is very small. That's where the idea of using image stacking software comes into play. If you take several images, all with different planes of focus on the subject, then you can stack them and create a single image that's totally in focus. Unfortunately, this seems to be easier said than done.

 

[cmm889]

Oh your right, I read your post backwards.

Your right, luckily my lens doesn't have that shallow of a depth of field. You CAN use composite photography via photostacking to increase your illusion of depth of field since yours is so shallow...

if you wanted to you can use the mask layer function exactly the same way to create a composite image where the subject is entirely in focus.

I dont know really much on this photostack application or program or whatever it may be so I honestly dont know whats "easier". for me the mask layers in photoshop gives me all the control I could ever really need..

I guess the # of photo's it'd take you to get a focused subject matter would depend on how long your subject matter is in relation to your plane of depth of field...

what you really need to fix this is a tilt shift lens that allows you intead of having a DOF plane that is perpendicular to the ground you can actually tilt the lens so that your plane of DOF actually is parallel with the subject, so instead of a foreground background difference you'd have a verticle difference allowing you to completely focus on say... a pygmy drosera.. that didn't have alot of verticle height...

but if you say break down your subject matter into say... 3 different focus levels, with photoshop you can easily merge those 3 to complete a totally focused subject...

you'd use your mask layer on each layer and you'd take away the unfocused area's of the subject matter...
so with 3 stacked layers you'd end up with only the focused area's being visible.
this amount of control allows you to also change light levels and do color correction on whatever specific parts of the plant you'd need to do, so if one part had highlights there blown out you wouldnt have to adjust the entire photographs histogram...


-Chris

 

[DrWurm]

Oh your right, I read your post backwards.

Your right, luckily my lens doesn't have that shallow of a depth of field. You CAN use composite photography via photostacking to increase your illusion of depth of field since yours is so shallow...

if you wanted to you can use the mask layer function exactly the same way to create a composite image where the subject is entirely in focus.

I dont know really much on this photostack application or program or whatever it may be so I honestly dont know whats "easier". for me the mask layers in photoshop gives me all the control I could ever really need..

I guess the # of photo's it'd take you to get a focused subject matter would depend on how long your subject matter is in relation to your plane of depth of field...

what you really need to fix this is a tilt shift lens that allows you intead of having a DOF plane that is perpendicular to the ground you can actually tilt the lens so that your plane of DOF actually is parallel with the subject, so instead of a foreground background difference you'd have a verticle difference allowing you to completely focus on say... a pygmy drosera.. that didn't have alot of verticle height...

but if you say break down your subject matter into say... 3 different focus levels, with photoshop you can easily merge those 3 to complete a totally focused subject...

you'd use your mask layer on each layer and you'd take away the unfocused area's of the subject matter...
so with 3 stacked layers you'd end up with only the focused area's being visible.
this amount of control allows you to also change light levels and do color correction on whatever specific parts of the plant you'd need to do, so if one part had highlights there blown out you wouldnt have to adjust the entire photographs histogram...


-Chris

I did manage to get a few top down pics with my tripod, this one being the best: http://www.flickr.com/photos/drwurm/3315991878/in/set-72157612322403233/

It just so happened that all of those tentacles were in my plane of focus.

I'll try my hand at manually photostacking with photoshop. I'm sure it's tedious, but at least I control the stacking. I'll post it here if I ever get a decent finished product.

I did a manual panorama stitching the other day in photoshop http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3582/3355954776_8cef093b11_b.jpg

I was very pleased with the results.

 

[cmm889]

wow, thats a pretty convincing panoramic shot.

panorama's were actually my specialty in highschool, I've got one in my bedroom that I did from colorado that is 1'tall and 6' wide... it took like 10 photographs haha... I'll have to post it if I can find it online...( I'm at work at the moment)

Look up how to do Mask Layers online you'll find better tutorials with pictures, or if you want we can set up a time where we can both log into some kind of instant messanger or Gmail chat function that way I can use my own photoshop program to kind of give better help if you need it...

your lens is WAYY more macro than mine, so the potential for you to do absolutely stunning stuff is great.

photoshops masking function will give you control over everything inside your image...
you do shoot in RAW format dont you?

post any results you complete I'd love to look at em

-Chris

 

[PlantAKiss]

Congratulations to the winners!

I'm glad I didn't have the job of picking. There were so many fantastic photos. I love Jonathan's binata. I think sundews are so cool when they make those little fists.

Thank you Jeremiah...that was fun!