Gallery for Blog Post 6 - The Secret Life of Plants - Part 1
In this Gallery, I’m going to do something different - I’m going to show only one image. I picked a single still image from the 6075 separate photos that made up the timelapse sequence, and “re-interpreted” that image in 17 different ways.
Some of these variations began life as presets downloaded from the Adobe site, then tweaked to suit the subject (since presets are only starting points, and can rarely be used “straight out of the box”), and some are creations of my own from scratch.
This exercise has two purposes:
To highlight the versatility of Adobe Lightroom. All of these effects were done strictly within Lightroom - Photoshop was not used for any of them. (If I were to start using Photoshop, I’d be at this for weeks : -) ).
To amplify how secret the life of plants can be. All these different faces of the same being? Which one reflects its true nature? Well, that’s the secret, isn’t it?
1 - This is the original image as processed automatically by Lightroom. In other words, I clicked the Auto button on the Basic tab and made no other custom changes to the image to create a “baseline” without any subjective, “interpretive” aspects to it.
2 - This is a B&W conversion with the Highlights turned down all the way, Shadows lightened quite a bit, and the Clarity cranked all the way up to 100.
3 - In this version, Exposure has been increased slightly (+0.75), Highlights turned down all the way, Whites increased mid-way, and Shadows and Black bumped a bit. Clarity cranked to the max, Saturation increased slightly, but Vibrance dropped about a third (-33).
4 - Here I warmed things up a bit by increasing the White Balance (color temperature) from 5100 Kelvin (K) to 5450 K. Highlights and Whites decreased by 3/4, Shadows and Black increased by about the same amount. Clarity up 2/3 (to +66), Vibrance up 1/4, and Saturation down 20%.
5 - For this B&W conversion, I upped the Sharpening slightly (amount 74, radius 1.2, detail 14), added a touch of Noise Reduction with a fair amount of Grain (amount 70, size 49). Contrast cranked to 100%, but only moderate decreases of the Highlights/Whites, and moderate increases of the Shadows/Blacks. Clarity up 50%.
6 - For this one I added a Gradient Filter in the vertical position on the left side, gradually darkening the image toward the right side. I also added a small, sharp Radial Filter right above the blossom to give the appearance of a spotlight reflection, or maybe the sun beaming through. I added some Split Toning with a muted yellowish/mustard color for the highlights, and a steel blue hue for the shadows - I shifted the balance about 25% to the highlights. Fair amount of Sharpening (96, radius 0.9, detail 50), moderate Noise Reduction, and slight Vignette to darken the corners somewhat.
7 - Played with Hue in this one (Yellow at -52 to make that more orange, and Blue at +40 to make that a deeper, cooler, blue). Also turned down the Saturation across the board: Yellow -100, Green -82, Aqua and Blue about -60, and all the other colors averaging around -15. Contrast, Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation all increased moderately, and Blacks up 60%. Moderate Split Toning with highlights set to a greyish hue, and shadows set to a steel-blue.
8 - This one has some radical Hue changes: Orange +100 (making that color as yellow as possible), Yellow and Green at -100, making those two as orange and yellow as possible, respectively. Saturation dropped to -75 on all colors except Red, which was left neutral (0). Contrast cranked to 100%, Highlights/Whites and Shadows increased moderately, Blacks dropped to -70.
9 - Creating this “rust” effect entailed dropping the Saturation for Yellow, Green, and Aqua to -100, Red and Orange up to +75, and the remaining colors averaging about -40. Contrast pegged at 100%, with Highlights and Shadows nearly that high (averaging around +90). Whites increased midway, but Blacks dialed all the way down to -100. A vertically-oriented Gradient Filter was added to the right side, gradually increasing Contrast and dropping Shadows toward the left side, so the leaves are considerably darker than the flower. Two “hot” radial filters added above the flower to simulate light sources.
10 - For this low-key B&W conversion, I started by dropping the Exposure by one stop. Shadows up to 100, Blacks down to -100. Highlights -60, Whites +60. Contrast +90, Clarity +90. Moderate changes to the B&W mix to bring out the blossom and darken the leaves. Multiple Gradient and Radial Filters to moderate the light in various parts of the frame. Clarity and Sharpness both turned up quite a bit, as you can see in the veins of the leaves.
11 - Messed with almost every slider in the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance panel to create the “steely” tone on this one. Too many changes to describe, pretty much up and down all over the map. Exposure down by half a stop, Contrast down 25%, but Clarity up to +100. Highlights and Shadows up close to 100, with Blacks down to -50. Vibrance up to 100, but (global) Saturation down to -75.
12 - This one is a variation of my Painterly Color preset, with less radical changes to Texture and Clarity. Moderate Split Toning was added to turn the shadows a bit greenish (as you can see on the bottom) and the highlights sort of “mustard-y”. No changes to Hue, Saturation, or Luminance, but Clarity turned down to -36, and only moderate fluctuations to the other settings on the Basic tab.
13 - I wanted a slightly less contrasty B&W conversion, so there were only moderate changes in that regard on the Basic panel. Subtle Split Toning with greenish/yellowish tint to the highlights and a greyish tint to the shadows. Moderate Sharpening and Clarity.
14 - Here’s an “old-timey” look achieved with a hard-edged rectangular vignette. Moderate Split Tone with greenish/yellowish highlights and slightly purple/magenta shadows.
15 - Here’s a slightly “harder” Split Tone that almost looks like a B&W, with greyish highlights and mustard-y shadows. Vibrance and Saturation dialed down to about -60 (which contributes to the near-B&W feel), and moderate increases in Highlight/Whites and Shadows/Blacks.
16 - Ironically, this variation has the least changes of any one of this set, other than a conversion to B&W and very subtle Split Toning. The difference in the Split Tone - which gives it that neutral, low-contrast feel - is that the same grey hue was added to both the highlights and shadows. No changes at all in the Basic and HSL panels.
17 - I’ll leave you with another deceptive one - despite the “punchy” look to this, there were very few changes made - the Split Tone and HSL panels were left untouched, but Highlights/Whites were dropped to an average of about -65, while Shadows/Blacks were bumped to about +40. Although Contrast was only increased by 20%, the high-contrast look is due to the Dehaze being cranked to 80%. Setting the Clarity to +65, Vibrance to +25, and (global) Saturation to +70 are the main contributors to high-color, high-contrast effect.