Taking Photos of Flowers and Flower Close Ups!

Photograph Flowers PhotoshopIt’s my birthday, and what better way to start, than by receiving gorgeous flowers.

Here is a photoshopped “portrait” version of the flowers. Later in this post, I’ll show you the full-color image, but here I thought I’d have a little fun changing their appearance in Photoshop.

I decided to emphasize the pink in the arrangement – especially those cute rosettes.

In a previous post, I went through how to achieve color with black and white with Photoshop. In this instance I didn’t completely turn the photo into black and white, I just desaturated the colors slightly and brought back some of the original colors from a selection of the photograph.

I could have chosen a few different color backgrounds but decided to go with black. I have a few different colored sheets of A1 size paper always handy – they are a great, quick way to create a professional look, and it only takes a few minutes!

Keep reading for some more photos…

Photograph Flowers Close up

I don’t get sent flowers very often, so when I do it’s an exciting event!

Flowers are a classic photographic subject. They are so happy and full of color and detail.

They also have a tendency to be pretty “busy” – lots of detail and information to take in on the one image.

So, the background becomes very important. I chose to go with the classic black – mainly because of the light colors in the flowers.

If the bouquet was full of dark-toned flowers – red roses, irises, or Australian native flowers, I would have chosen an off-white background. Black, in these cases, would have drowned the flowers.

As I mentioned before, having some plain sheets of A1 paper lying around comes in incredibly handy.

I often have little things I want to photograph, and for these, having a permanent “studio” to choose from is great.

Photograph Flowers Full Color

On the whole, black and white come in the handiest, but if I find that there’s something I want a background for, and neither of these tones will work, I just go to the art store and find which color I want.

Art stores always carry an array of colored sheets of thin card (regular weight paper is too flimsy and dints too easily) – you can get acid free, but the key is to keep it absolutely flat – don’t roll or fold it. Any dint your crease will show up in your photo. Keep them clean also.

Well, let’s see how long my birthday will last this year…