24 Sep 2012

Want Tack Sharp Images?

by | posted in: Photography | 9
achieving tack sharp images - Beauty in Decay Colour palette | Texture | Chrysanthemum x superbum 'Snowcap' | Leucanthemum | Shasta Daisy Blooms
Beauty in Decay Colour palette : Chrysanthemum x superbum 'Snowcap'

Want tack sharp images? Here are my photography techniques for achieving tack sharp images in-camera along with details of a free photoshop action.

 

Fluctuating temperatures along with frost and misty mornings have arrived. While the fading flower petals bid their final farewells.  Hues of gold and russet are gradually etching their colourful palettes into the foliage.

 

Presently all around I see such beauty ...even in decay!

Want Tack Sharp Images?

 

Since I wanted to focus on the shimmering texture of the flower petal I needed the curving petal to be tack sharp.

This is how I set up the shot ...

  • I didn't have a diffuser outside with me but I was shooting in the shade. I placed my hand about 4 inches above the flower to prevent a few blown out highlights that were appearing on the test shots.
  • Adjusted the manual settings until no highlights were showing on the LCD.
  • Manually focused every time I made an amendment to the settings.
  • Finally pressed the shutter button and hoped there would be no breeze!

Focus Stacking - tack sharp images

 

If I had wanted all of the flower tack sharp I would have taken a few more photographs of the yellow centre part of the flower with the focus point of the camera on those parts.   Then stacked the images together in photoshop or Helicon focus.  I chose not to do that this time. Moreover I wanted the focus to just be on the fading curving white petal.

 

Then I brought the image into photoshop. After doing my usual workflow (topaz denoise, a clean edit and a slight crop) I tried something different. I used an advanced sharpening action for web viewing by Russian photographer -  Pavel Kosenko.  You can read all about the action, see screen shots and download it free from www.perfectphotoblog.com.  It's a great action for getting tack sharp images when viewing on the web and even in 2016 it's still my favourite sharpening tool.

Follow Rosie Nixon:

Photography Tutor and Gardener

Rosie is a garden photographer, writer and nature lover. She enjoys soaking up nature and is easily distracted from doing the weeding by anything that flutters, flies, buzzes, creeps or crawls! She enjoys sharing the beauty of creation through her photography. Rosie has been featured on TV on BBC2's The Beechgrove Garden and she uses the outdoors as her natural light studio. Her work can be seen at one of Scotland's only photography galleries - Close Gallery, 4b Howe Street, Edinburgh. She also writes and shares her nature images on www.irelandbirdphotography.com

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9 Responses

  2. Diana Taylor
    |

    A wonderful image and so beautifully captured. Thanks for the extremely informative information you share – I found it very interesting this week and shall be looking into it more thoroughly.
    Thanks again.

  6. Michelle
    |

    Lots of good tidbits of info here. And I always appreciate when people find and share beauty of unlikely things.

  8. Kimberly
    |

    Beautiful photo! Thank you for the tips. However you lost me at "set up tripod". 🙂 I seldom take the time to do that.