Donna Turner has sent me the Harold Davis series of videos. I went ahead and got the links for the subjects she notes in her email to me and posted them here. Then there is a section on 3D Flowers. And another section on Photographing flowers on a lightbox. You don’t have to search for them. The links are below. Take your time with the videos. Watch them at your convenience. I know this post is lengthy. Leave comments below.

If you have any questions, Donna’ s contact info is;

Donna Turner Ddturner2@cox.net

402-680-1186

HAROLD DAVIS FLOWER PHOTOGRAPHY ON A LIGHTBOX

On U Tube look under Harold Davis Photography on a lightbox. There are several similar Webinars so watch for the titles recommended. Matching the length of time of each webinar helps.

PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS FOR TRANSPARENCY WEBINAR PART 1 INTRODUCTION 1:12:45

PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS FOR TRANSPARENCY PART 2 ARRANGING & EXPOSING 1:23:16

PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS FOR TRANSPARENCY PART 3 PROCESSING A HIGH-KEY LAYER STACK 1:20:56

PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS FOR TRANSPARENCY PART 4 ADVANCED TECHNIQUES 1:23:17

PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS FOR TRANSPARENCY PART 5 OVER TO YOU 1:20:38 ( AN CONTINUATION OF PART 4)

( There are several similar programs but the above are a series)

If you want to go further with the LAB process:

Creative LAB Color Part 1: Getting Started 1:26:54

Creative LAB Color Part 2: Advanced Techniques 1:04:45

Photo cards I recommended are Strathmore Photo Mount Cards Available at Dick Blick or Amazon

3D Flowers

3 D FLOWERS

1. Select flower and move to Photoshop. Crop it to a square. (Crop—ratio 1:1 click.
2. Make 4 copies of it. Shortcut is Control J on a PC or Command J on a MAC.
3. Go to Image —canvas size. Change to a percent and change both percents to 150. Click OK. This puts a white border around the picture.
4. Highlight the top copy in the layers panel on the right.
5. Get the move tool (first tool) and holding down the shift key put the cursor on the big main picture and move a copy to the right until just touching the main picture. (The copy will magically appear.)
6. Go to Edit —transform and flip horizontally.
7. Go to Edit — free transform, click and handles will appear. If some are off the page and not visible do control/command zero or control/command – and the picture will shrink and the handles appear.
8. Holding shift grab the middle far right handle and squish the side picture until it is within the white boundary. Click (check mark)
9. Edit –transform—perspective. With shift and move tool, Grab top outside handle and pull up until you are at 45 degree angle (see upper bar) click.
10. Highlight the next layer. Using shift, move the picture left until just touching main picture.
11. Edit –transform and flip horizontally.
12. Edit – Free transform. Grab middle handle and with shift squish to inside white boundary. click
13. Edit—transform—perspective. With shift use handle to move to 45 degrees. click
14. Highlight the third layer.
15. As before, with shift move the layer this time up.
16. Edit—transform and flip vertically
17. Repeat steps 12 and 13. Squish to the white boundary. click
18. Highlight fourth layer, move layer down and Edit—transform and flip vertically.
19. Repeat steps 12 and 13.

OPTIONAL LIGHTING:

20. Lighting: click on layer in stack that shows the left side.
21. To darken, click Image—adjustment–Brightness and contrast. Decrease -100
22. To lighten, go to opposite side layer in stack, click Image –adjustment–Brightness and contrast. Increase +100.
23. On top image, darken -50% with Image—Adjustment—Brightness and contrast.

QUESTIONS: Donna Turner Ddturner2@cox.net

402-680-1186

Photographing Flowers on a Lightbox

Donna Turner ddturner2@cox.net

1. Lay lightbox flat on the floor of a normally lit room.
2. Put camera on tripod and place it over lightbox as high as you can and still see the camera screen

Set camera on:

1. low ISO –100
2. Manual exposure
3. Manual focus capable of at least 5 times magnification
4. F stop of F11 to F16 depending on distance from lens to flowers. Choose one and don’t change
5. Long exposure noise reduction ON

3. Artfully arrange flowers on box. (This is the hard part.)

1. Scissors, tweezers, paper clips, tape, museum gel and little pebbles are all helpful in holding flowers in place
2. Easiest to cut heads of flowers and leaves from stems.
3. Take practice shots at shutter speed of ½ or 2 seconds after turning light box on.
4. Remember you don’t see depth in lightbox photography.

4 . Then take a series of 6-8 shots.

1. Start with shutter speed of 1/30 then 1/15, 1/8,1/4 and continue with one stop

difference until you get to 4 or 8 seconds where it becomes too light.

b. Change only the shutter speed.

Transfer to lightroom.

DO NOT CROP PICTURES UNTIL THE END

ce ca cc cv

ce–(control e on a PC, command e on a MAC)

Move picture from Lightroom LR to Photoshop PS

Ca (control a on a PC, command c on a MAC)–Select picture in Photoshop

ca– (control a on a PC, command a on a MAC) Copy picture in Photoshop

cv – control v on a PC, command v on a MAC) Put picture on top of another layer in Photoshop

1. In Lightroom highlight the longest exposure (4 or 8 seconds) and take it into Photoshop.

(Photo –edit in Photoshop or use shortcut ce)

*( If there is something extraneous in this first shot (like a scissors or the edge of the light box, it is easy to remove. With the eye dropper tool, sample an area near where you want to make a change. Then with the brush tool set on white, remove it. It won’t show up on subsequent pictures.)

2. Back to Lightroom (LR) highlight the next longest exposure and take it into Photoshop ( PS) (ce)

A. With that picture highlighted Select All (ca)

B. Then copy (cc))

C. Go to first image in PS. It will be on the black bar on the left. Paste. (cv)

3. In PS go to Layer – layer mask – Hide all. Very important. That takes you back to lighter image.

4. Now you are going to use the paintbrush to lightly paint back in from the darker image.

Lower opacity (ex. 50%) and flow (ex. 50%) on top bar. Your layer mask will be black so you are painting with white.

Then with pencil set to fairly soft , start painting in color. This is where the creative part comes in.

If you make a mistake hit Control z to undo.

5. Back to Lightroom, get next picture, ce, then ca, then Ccc. Back to first image and cv.

Layer – Layer mask—Hide all and paint as before.

6. Keep going back to Lightroom for another picture. You won’t necessarily use them all.

Lower opacity as you go.

7. Now you can crop!
8. To clean up any bad spots on your flowers, Do control and the plus sign to magnify image. Maneuver around using the space bar and the mouse and use the spot healing brush in PS.
9. When finished Save All with layers intact. You can save with all layers by holding down Control, Shift, Alt and e all at the same time
10. Then flatten Image and make further adjustments in Lightroom – if desired.
11. Save

( This whole process if much easier if you tether your camera to your computer with a cord.) In Lightroom go to file,Tethered capture, Start tethered capture, ,Fill in session name , Ok. Enter your numbers and then you can just sit at your computer to take all the pictures)