Edit Your Macro Flower Photography Using Photoshop Actions

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Edit Your Macro Flower Photography Using Photoshop Actions

As I explained in last week’s before and after Blueprint, there are so many ways to edit your macro flower images. From vintage to vibrant, you are the artist in Photoshop.

Once you decide on the look you want for your flower photographs, you can locate Photoshop actions and textures to help you achieve the style you want. Last Friday, I edited a beautiful flower photographed by the talented, award winning, Mike Moats. I am excited to post-process another of his amazing images today.

Purple Coneflowers: I love how there is a flower in focus in the foreground, and a blurred flower in the background.  This gives the appearance of depth.  I love the straight out of camera for this shot, but know there is more color and detail we can bring out using Photoshop actions and techniques.

prickly-flower-before-600px Edit Your Macro Flower Photography Using Photoshop Actions MCP Actions Projects

Step-By-Step Blueprint:

  1. To pull out bright, vivid colors from the image, I started by using the Color Pop Photoshop action, Finger-paint, from the Quickie Collection action set. In this action, you literally paint on more vibrant color where you want it.
  2. To brighten up the image, I then used Magical Midtone Lifter, a Photoshop action that brightens the midtones, from the Bag of Tricks. I set the layer to 62%.
  3. Next I wanted to bring out detail in the sharp prickly red areas (can you tell I do not know parts of the flower). I used the Magical Clarity action – this Photoshop action that pulls out contrast in the midtones, adds dimension, and draws out natural textures.
  4. The last step was sharpening. For the print version I used the Free Sharpening action, High Definition Sharpening. For the web version, I used Crystal Clear Resize and Sharpen, also part of the High Definition set.

Here is the final result after using the above steps:

prickly-flower-after-600px Edit Your Macro Flower Photography Using Photoshop Actions MCP Actions Projects

 

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  1. Teresa Woods on June 19, 2013 at 11:49 am

    My studio is very small and dark, and a majority of my subjects are kids. I have my main light, which is a 4′ octagon that takes up a lot of space in the corner of the room. The octagon stays in the corner regardless of what I’m photographing, and is used to fill the whole room full of light. For babies I use the octagon as fill, and an additional 2×3 soft box close to the baby as the main light. With limited space, this setup works pretty well. If I had the ice light I could replace the octagon, and free up a lot of space!

  2. Laura Short on July 9, 2013 at 1:45 pm

    Great to see my blueprint! I wanted to update my info to my new website.

  3. Emily on October 8, 2013 at 11:17 pm

    I am trying to start editing photos and I have Photoshop CC. I do not understand what you mean by pick me up action and baby bottle action and etc please explain

  4. stacy on September 5, 2014 at 1:30 am

    How did you change the composition? Before the baby is flat and after the baby is tilted upwards…I have Photoshop and Lightroom. I’ve tried in both and can’t seem to get it to work. Thanks!

  5. thanks for sharing very useful

  6. RosannaMignacca on August 5, 2015 at 4:08 pm

    Very cool. I have this collection of actions and love them. I just realized however, that I have never used the “Baby Bottle” action for a haze. Must try now!

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