Black and white treatments of an heirloom rose.
A grayscale rose
Dramatic midsummer blues
Johnson’s blue cranesbill geraniums are going strong as midsummer approaches. On the rainier side of the mountains in the Pacific Northwest our summers tend to start a little later than most. We can’t reliably plan an outdoor event in advance until after Independence Day.While June is a great time for roses some of the other flowers are going strong right now as well and the crane’s bill geraniums are a personal favorite. This trio peaking out of the shade caught my eye while walking the dogs a couple of days ago.
For Cee’s Flower of the Day and Mama Cormier’s Thursday Trios.
Chiaroscuro style image
I’ve been experimenting with the technique this month, using flowers and the somewhat harsh natural light of June. First taking a photo where the highlights show against shadows. Then using post processing to increase the dramatic difference: Chiaroscuro means light/shadow.
Chiaroscuro is a method from painting, popular during the Renaissance. Here is an example:
Chiaroscuro features are deep shadows and strong highlights from a directional light source,with lots of detail in the highlights.
To get the effect I underexpose the photo a bit, enough to ensure that no details are lost in the highlights.
The next step is to use Raw Therapee. The tools I’ve found helpful, in no particular order, are:
In the Exposure tab: highlight compression in the Exposure tools. This brings out detail in the bright areas. Also, I use the tone curves.
In the Details tab: the Haze Removal tool brings out details and darkens the shadows. Also, for some photos, the Contrast by details tool is useful. Note: I always apply both the Local contrast and Noise Reduction for color noise. My post Create a Raw Therapee Processing Profile describes the tools I apply to all photos.
I finish up in the GIMP, where I make a duplicate layer and the multiply blend mode, modifying the opacity and masking the layer to get a more dramatic contrast between the light and dark layers. Then I make a layer from the visible (some people might use a merge function in lieu of this) use the curves tool to finish up. Colors>Curves.
If you are unfamiliar with using the open-source software Raw Therapee and the GIMP, you can learn about using them in this post: Photo processing workflow using open source software.
White petals
Some white flowers from around the area this week, plus a little silver in the cedar fencing and raindrops. For Life in Colour: White and silver.
Almost summer
For Wordless Wednesday and Cee’s Flower of the Day.
They should call it “Iris”
I think that May is misnamed.
Around here, a better name is “Iris”. Because the iris are blooming in their glory right now. Proving my point: here are just a few bearded ones from walking the pups this week.
I had some fun with Topaz Studio on these. Bearded iris is so beautiful it looks gorgeous with so many different digital art processes. Each of these uses different settings in Topaz Studio 2.
This post is a little late for Brashley Photography’s Floral Friday, but it’s also suitable for Cee’s Flower of the Day: Bearded Iris and Life in Colour: Purple by Travel Words.
On the Life in Colour challenge there has been discussion about the difference between purple and violet. In my experience, the difference between purple and violet often depends on the light, the iris in my yard appears blue-violet at certain times of the day. Different processing plays up the blue (violet is typically seen as more blue than traditional purple).
A Sony RX10Miv took all of these photos (with me attached). I used Raw Therapee, Topaz Studio 2 and the GIMP for processing. For some tips about using Raw Therapee and the GIMP see my page: The photo processing tools on my belt.
Ornamental plum blossom: the spirit of almost spring.
Close-up of an ornamental plum blossom is a sign that winter is starting to let up and spring is coming soon.