Photo Story: White Plumeria – Painted Look

I took this photo of a White Plumeria at the hotel when I was traveling to India for business. I really like the composition of the photo but the front petal wasn’t sharp.

White Plumeria – Topaz Impression

After a ½ hour or so of post processing, I still didn’t like the result. I decided to make the entire photo soft to match the one soft petal. I used the Smooth and Flat Filter in Topaz Adjust to soften the image (photo 2 in the blog). But, still no luck. I still didn’t like the result.

I decided to try Topaz Impression to apply a artistic paint preset to the flower. After scrolling through the filters, I decided to used the Oil Painting II preset on the flower. After modifying some the settings, I really like the end result.

So if you have an image that isn’t completely sharp, don’t throw it away, try using an artistic plugin or preset to give your image a different look.

White Plumeria – Smooth and Flat

Details

Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M1
Lens: Olympus 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 Lens
Focal Length: 43mm
ISO: 640
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100 of a second
Exposure Compensation: 0
Lighting: Partly Cloudy Morning Light

Processing

Cropped the photo in Lightroom 5.
Cleaned up the background and removed a bug from the flower using the Clone Stamp and Healing Brush in Photoshop CC.
Applied the Macro I filter in Topaz Clarity.
Used the Detail Extractor, Lighten/Darken Center, and Film Efex: Vintage filters in Color Efex Pro 4.

Used Viveza 2 to selectively lighten and darken areas of the photo.
Applied Smooth and Flat filter in Topaz Adjust.
Applied the Oil Painting II Filter from Topaz Impression.
Depending on the brush that is used in Topaz Impression, white spots can be left in the background. I used the Healing Brush to fix the white spots in the background.

Written by Martin Belan

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