Parodia roseoleut

cactuspic · Post by **cactuspic** » Tue May 22, 2007 2:26 am

I took this little beauty at our show and sale, the other day. I liked the lighting so much I then shot a closeup. When I sought to adjust the image in PS in level, I clusily clicked on auto levels instead. Though the colors are distorted, I like my accident. Hope you enjoy.

Irwin

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Tue May 22, 2007 3:06 am

Sometimes accidents, depending on what they are, can be quite fortunate and I suppose this is one of them. The photographs do have a unique "glow" to them.

cactuspic · Post by **cactuspic** » Tue May 22, 2007 3:58 am

Hi Ken. I have been making a concerted effort to see the light more clearly & use my lighting to develop the qualities of my subject. The first two, are the straight renditions. The only change, except for the elimination of a few halos and dust spot, was to adjust the levels in PS. #3 is where autol levels changed the colors pallette. I forgot to mention that the images were stacked.

Iriwn

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Tue May 22, 2007 7:45 am

Irwin, I find that I use custom white balance a lot, especially for studio shots. My lighting varies unpredictably from setup to setup -- for example as I turn the intensity knob on a halogen illuminator -- so shooting a white card is the only way I can know what I have. Do you set custom white balance too?

I'm curious because in pic #1, even the greens look a bit reddish to me, and I'm unsure whether that's how the plant really is, or it's an optical illusion (because of the reddish spines), or if the color balance is a bit off. Any ideas?

--Rik

cactuspic · Post by **cactuspic** » Tue May 22, 2007 8:26 am

Hi Rik, the shot was taken with available light in the lobby of a mall under large skylights on an overcast day. The light was corrected for overcast setting. I think the flower is about right. I think there is some orange/pink light partiularly in the front of the plant where the light is coming through the translucent pink petals. I had tilted the plant so that the light turned the front petals tranlucent and made it glow. I will be going to the greenhouse later and will check the color of my plant (same species, different specimen) and also check the color distribution in PS.

Irwin

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Tue May 22, 2007 8:55 am

Thanks for the additional info.

FWIW, I've seen some mall skylights that have distinct color casts. I think they're intended to "warm up" the interior a bit so people feel better. It might an interesting experiment to shoot with preset for overcast and again with custom white balance, and see how closely they agree.

It's an interesting point, that the pink flower may be filtering the light that illuminates the green parts. I had not thought about that possibility.

--Rik

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Wed May 23, 2007 4:38 am

At first I thought the first two were the ones you changed. than I thought "I have never seen a cactus with a blue flower

. The levels seems to have brought out more contrast and detail in the flower.

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Wed May 23, 2007 7:25 am

You are correct Doug, the one colour lacking in cactus flowers is blue. There are blue flowered other succulents but not cacti.

DaveW