Flower Macro - My entire workflow

[407370]

Hi All,

I made this:

Here is how I made it:
1 - Setup a studio

This is my garden shed. Please note the following:
A. Astroturf nailed to the wall for the background
B. Godox V1 with diffuser. V1 has a slight green tinge to the light but is corrected by the diffuser.
C. Remote trigger. Fuzzy pics are easy to create using the finger on button method.
D. No attempt is made to mask ambient light. Flash over powers ambient.

Settings

Flash

Focus shift Shooting

Camera

Now I have the 10 images. Import to computer using NIKON TRANSFER. I connect the computer to camera with USB-C Cable (I have a CF-B Card reader but its just less effort to connect directly.

Now I got my images onto the computer. I import the 10 RAW files into Helicon Focus.

The process is done using the "C" Method which is best for complex shapes or high number of images to be stacked. This particular stack was a first time success. No problems so went straight to exporting a lossless TIFF.

Luminar Neo

I import the TIFF into Neo and add a bit of sharpening and cropping. Export JPG at 2 different sizes 1080Px x 1080Px for Instagram and full size.

Normally I would do a lot more editing for the final image but in this case it was not needed.

Comments welcome.

CHEERS
JBO

 

[jeffashman]

Thank you for sharing that how-to!

 

[Rickbb]

Nice shot and great write up. Kind of thing some of us really need to see more of.

 

[denum]

Hi All,

I made this:
View attachment 276247

Here is how I made it:
1 - Setup a studio
View attachment 276248

This is my garden shed. Please note the following:
A. Astroturf nailed to the wall for the background
B. Godox V1 with diffuser. V1 has a slight green tinge to the light but is corrected by the diffuser.
C. Remote trigger. Fuzzy pics are easy to create using the finger on button method.
D. No attempt is made to mask ambient light. Flash over powers ambient.

Settings

Flash
View attachment 276249

Focus shift Shooting
View attachment 276250

Camera
View attachment 276251

Now I have the 10 images. Import to computer using NIKON TRANSFER. I connect the computer to camera with USB-C Cable (I have a CF-B Card reader but its just less effort to connect directly.

View attachment 276252

Now I got my images onto the computer. I import the 10 RAW files into Helicon Focus.

View attachment 276253

The process is done using the "C" Method which is best for complex shapes or high number of images to be stacked. This particular stack was a first time success. No problems so went straight to exporting a lossless TIFF.

Luminar Neo

I import the TIFF into Neo and add a bit of sharpening and cropping. Export JPG at 2 different sizes 1080Px x 1080Px for Instagram and full size.

View attachment 276254


View attachment 276255


View attachment 276256

View attachment 276257

Normally I would do a lot more editing for the final image but in this case it was not needed.

Comments welcome.

CHEERS
JBO

Good information here. I have wanted to do some focus stacking on some of my macro stuff but seems the wind was always blowing my subject around. I see you have the resolution set to 500 pixels/inch. Do you normally go with this resolution or is it something you do just with macros?

 

[407370]

Thank you for sharing that how-to!

You are welcome.

Nice shot and great write up. Kind of thing some of us really need to see more of.

One of the reasons I made this was to encourage more people to post their workflows. There are things we all take for granted as being "Common Knowledge" but are a complete mystery to 50% of the people looking at your pics. I have learned a lot from a lot from TPF members and I would learn a lot more if they posted their workflows. I have looked at so many pics and been inspired to try to reproduce a look and having a workflow makes it a bit easier.

Good information here. I have wanted to do some focus stacking on some of my macro stuff but seems the wind was always blowing my subject around. I see you have the resolution set to 500 pixels/inch. Do you normally go with this resolution or is it something you do just with macros?

I never gave it a second thought. 500 was the default. Now that you have mentioned it I will try and generate the same pic with different resolution just to see what happens.

Thanks all for the replies.

CHEERS
JBO