Life has been busy lately and I haven't had much time to either take pics or visit here. Time to make it up a little. Here's a flashback from last month. All taken with Sigma 70mm macro.

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There's plenty more, but I won't bother you with more at the moment

[codiac2600]

Wonderful shots here, I really like the way you processed these along with the great composition. What technique do you use to get this effect if you don't mind me asking?

[Moggman]

Yeah, love the way the colors look, how did you get that effect in PP?

[and]

wow... these are really fantastic. I just love these, the colors are great as mentioned and the focus is really good too, lots of people take pictures of flowers but few manage to compose a more interesting and appealing shot. I rarely see flower shots this good, so rather than suggest anything Ill get in line with the others and ask for setup details Id be happy if I could get just one of these shots out of a flower session, if I did then I would surely print it big and put it on my wall....

[aabram]

Ah, yes, I myself quite fancy these colors too.

All these are handheld with my 70mm macro, most with manual focusing. The weather was overcast and that helped greatly, because I didn't have to worry about blowing the highlights. Fortunately there was not too much work involved. I already got sharp pics with and tender colors from my camera so there was nothing else involved but a bit of tweaking the curves. For pictures that have lot of greens and reds I sometimes use Petteri Sulonen's crossprocess curves as starting point. You can read more about his experimenting with curves here and download the actual files here. His crossprocess gives bluish/yellowish tint which works very well with greens and gives the reds pinkish cast, which is very much in line with my current taste. The downside is that the contrast increases considerably and some details are lost both in shadows and in highlights. That's why I apply the base curves and then tweak separate channels and/or curve level opacity until I find the combination that works for that particular photo. I usually combine several adjustment layers with different blending modes until I get the look I want.

The price for all that is, of course, the amount of time it all takes. I never batch process, always go through images one by one, even if the look OK in first glance. I look for possible dust spots, correct possible framing errors, straighten if needed and check for other defects. After that I'll see if I can bring the mood I want into the picture. Darker, lighter, color cast, increased contrast, increased or decreased saturation etc. Sometimes it's not needed. Sometimes it is. Took me 4-5 hours to go through 90+ pics but it was time well spent.