Lauren Heerschap
February 2025 - Purple Orchid
Original
About the Image(s)
I am experimenting with creating backgrounds in Photoshop for flowers. This was taken on my recent trip to Costa Rica,
and was growing in a garden. The background was full of a hose, and ugly dirt. Settings were 800 ISO, F5.6, 100 mm, 1/200sec. I think I stacked the photo of the flower in camera. Processing involved Lightroom, then Photoshop making a selection of the flower, inverting it, adding a hue saturation layer and changing it to green. I removed
the hose. I like it, but I am not happy with it. Suggestions on
improving the background?
5 comments posted
Lovely orchid. I like the diagonal. Adding green to the background is a great idea. I would make the green greener, and also lighten the background shadows. Removal of the hose worked fine. As an aside, I see you used PS for some editing.
Lightroom Classic now has great masking and generative removal tools. Posted: 02/10/2025 00:58:07
Lightroom Classic now has great masking and generative removal tools. Posted: 02/10/2025 00:58:07
Hi Lauren, I'm not fond of the leaning over aspect so I made the orchid stand tall proudly. Starting from the original, in PS Elements I removed the orangish background clutter with content-aware fill and cloning. I filled the background with a partial green fill to compliment the flower color. Then I added a bit of contrast and saturation. Using color contrast is helpful in flower photography to create impact. Karl Posted: 02/12/2025 18:21:19
By straightening the stem you created a more powerful diagonal on the left. The background gives the impression that the flower is emitting faint light. The overall result is beautiful. Posted: 02/12/2025 18:38:29
I love the editing you did here, Lauren. Karl's treatment of the background is very effective, but I prefer the orchid leaning over! Posted: 02/22/2025 03:58:57
Thanks. I prefer it leaning because orchids rarely stand straight up. Posted: 02/22/2025 04:08:48