How are these shots made?

[Evertking]

I tried and tried the other day and no luck.. is it flash???? I really don't think it is, but what do I know.
2016 — Alex Noriega Nature Photography the shot I'm talking about is "Sanctuary"

 

[weepete]

I think there's a bit of work in that. My opinion is it's shot directly overhead, on a cloudy day or in full shade. The size of the ferns is quite small judging by the clover. Mayber HDR. It's probably been colour graded and had the blacks compressed, vibrancy increased in post. I suspect there's also been noise reduction.

It's very even both in terms of lighting and colour.

 

[zombiesniper]

Lighting looks like an overcast but not too dark of a day. I don't think it was in the shade since you would get directional light in that type of situation.
Based on a lack of any shadow direction I would also say it was shot near the suns highest point in the sky.

There's some obvious post vignetting applied and maybe some colour touch up but not neccesarily.

 

[Ysarex]

I tried and tried the other day and no luck.. is it flash???? I really don't think it is, but what do I know.
2016 — Alex Noriega Nature Photography the shot I'm talking about is "Sanctuary"

Assuming a natural environment and not a studio, the lighting is low contrast. That could be an overcast sky or no sky and only the light at the forest floor. The key is the low contrast character of the light that typically results from a large light source. Given the size of the scene it could be a bright sunny day and the photographer has tented over the scene with a bed sheet.

The scene is groomed and constructed. The little white flower is most likely brought in. There is no evidence of a plant in the scene that would produce that flower. It certainly isn't from the clover, the ferns or the tree seedlings. A natural environment in a forest would also contain dead leaves, twigs, pine needles, all kinds of stuff -- and the plants will typically be in various stages of growth/decay -- and in the forest bugs eat plants. Nobody walking through the forest came upon this scene the way you see it in this photo.

Apart from that it's well post processed. The vignette is pretty strong. I suspect a tool was used similar to Capture One's color editor that can force hue and chroma uniformity over a range of colors. The greens seen in the photo are too uniform to have occurred naturally. Those different plants naturally produce a wider variation in hue/chroma.

Joe

 

[tirediron]

The little white flower is most likely brought in. There is no evidence of a plant in the scene that would produce that flower.

Actually, there is. The flower is a blackcap (colloquial name for a particular sub-species of small, ground-creeping blackberry), and you can see its leaves in the gap between the ferns, lower, just left of image centre, as well as the upper-left corner.

I don't know enough (Read, "Anything") about Capture 1 to comment, but my first thought was it appeared almost as if a ring light had been used at very close to the ferns and what we are seeing is the fall off between the brighter ferns and darker clover, etc.

 

[smoke665]

Tend to agree with others that supplemental light was used. I've shot ferns in the woods before, typically you find them in the deeper shaded areas. In the past I've used a large umbrella up close or even a piece of foam core handheld to bounce the light, keeping the contrast and spectacular highlights down, while allowing me a lower ISO with less noise.

As to processing I'd likely try to use a selective color layer/layers to even out the color, add inner shadows, adjusting the distance/choke sliders and contour, desaturated slightly, dodge and burn as required, use a radial gradient to get the vignette, then a process called "cookie cutter lighting" where you use a curves layer to pull down the brightness , then a white mask and soft black brush to paint back in light in certain spots, and finally one or more LUT's to finish.

 

[Ysarex]

The little white flower is most likely brought in. There is no evidence of a plant in the scene that would produce that flower.

Actually, there is. The flower is a blackcap (colloquial name for a particular sub-species of small, ground-creeping blackberry), and you can see its leaves in the gap between the ferns, lower, just left of image centre, as well as the upper-left corner.

I don't know enough (Read, "Anything") about Capture 1 to comment, but my first thought was it appeared almost as if a ring light had been used at very close to the ferns and what we are seeing is the fall off between the brighter ferns and darker clover, etc.

Ok, I can see that those leaves may be some variety of berry. I thought they were a tree seedling. But I'm still going with the whole thing is groomed and constructed. I have a small blackberry in the garden and when it blooms it blooms with dozens upon dozens of flowers. He still either brought that flower in or he picked all the other ones. I think flash fall-off is plausible but just as easy to create in post.

Joe

 

[Evertking]

Thanks everyone for the help. I'm off to the forest with my flash and give it a go. I do not own ring light but a small bendable diffuser contraption for a flash.
Gonna give it a go and see what happens.

 

[tirediron]

Ok, I can see that those leaves may be some variety of berry. I thought they were a tree seedling. But I'm still going with the whole thing is groomed and constructed. I have a small blackberry in the garden and when it blooms it blooms with dozens upon dozens of flowers. He still either brought that flower in or he picked all the other ones. I think flash fall-off is plausible but just as easy to create in post.

Joe

There's no doubt it's groomed, not disagreeing with you on that for a second. This is (figuratively speaking) just down the road from me; same climate, same plant species, etc. You simply cannot achieve that degree of verdant perfection in nature. There would be tree detritus, insects, chewed leaves... black caps are nowhere nears as prolific in their blooming as are their larger-vined cousins. As far as the lighting goes, I'm still a bit undecided. I may need to experiment a bit.

 

[JBPhotog]

This is a highly post processed image and I suspect no flash was used as the lighting is very flat, notice the lack of shadows. Plenty of D&B can produce the highlights on the fern edges, some are rather conspicuous. Additionally a selective colour layer was likely used since most vegetation does not have the same green colour palette.

 

[Derrel]

It could be overcast....or it could be a large softbox or octabox...whatever the light source was it gave a very soft diffused light. I do tend to agree that the greens are unnaturally uniform, and probably the product of some software manipulation. I also think that the scene was groomed and manicured before being photographed. I don't think that a ring light or a white foamy flash diffuser is what you need to create this, but rather something fairly large in relation to the subject, like at least a 24in by 24in softbox, or preferably something even larger. The key is to have a very large light source it one of the best soft light sources that is super large is a bed sheet, although in natural light conditions anything that is lighted by the sky with no direct sun will give you soft, shadowless lighting.

 

[Derrel]

I found the image on his Instagram page did it was made in March of 2017 In the Queets rainforest, which is I think about 60 to 75 MI south of John.

Like so many young people, this photographer photoshop's the crap out of his images he will in fact sell you a 1 hour and 55 minute tutorial for $69, detailing how he arrives at some of his selected landscape images.

I find it interesting that he has this filed under 2016 on one side and on his Instagram page it is listed as 2017, not that it really matters much.

His images are what one might lump into the heavily- Photoshopped category... looking at a few of his before and afters, one can see that he takes quite a bit of artistic license, which is his right of course.

I would not be overly-concerned if you were unable to create this image, as it is heavily post-processed.

 

[smoke665]

this photographer photoshop's the crap out of his images he will in fact sell you a 1 hour and 55 minute tutorial for $69, detailing how he arrives at some of his selected landscape images.

The old axiom I first learned back in the late 60's as the computer age was ramping up, "Garbage in-Garbage out" holds equal weight in editing photography. I went back to his page, doing a little snooping, and no doubt he's doing editing, but he's also practicing good skills up front. Things like capturing light at the best time, composition, etc. Sadly his tutorials don't seem to encompass much of the front end process, (capturing the image) which to me is where the editing should begin. One source I found really helpful was Nick Fancher's book "Studio Anywhere" book 1 &2. He takes you through the process from staging, lighting, shooting, and final editing of the image.

One thing I've found is that the more I learn about editing the more I'm able to recognize the techniques people use, especially when you read the clues they give in their tutorials. While there are many ways to do things in Ps, most share some commonality in their results. Adding to the things I already suggested above on steps taken, in studying his comments and images I believe he may also be using a technique (or variation of) the Orton Effect. I did a tutorial on it a while back The Orton Effect

 

[johngpt]

To me all the images at that 2016 page look as if they were edited using lots of dodging and burning using luminosity masks.
Some appear to have had highlights inserted by using a layer filled with black, the lasso tool to create areas of selection filled with white and a channel of that created. Then the channel is blurred and used to create a selection for masking either a levels or curves adjustment layer. It can create dramatic looking luminosity contrasts.

This highly processed look seems to be very popular these days.
Not my cup of tea.
.

 

[Evertking]

Ok, I used a on camera flash and a "flash bender" with Photoshop.. I think he may have used flash.