The Way of the Digital Photographer: Walking the Photoshop post-production path to more creative photography

Introduction

Looking at the bright red poppies from my garden, I envisioned an image that best showed off their bright color and translucency. To accomplish the first goal, I knew I needed to combine the red flowers with another color that would complement them. So I purchased some blue irises from a supermarket. To accomplish the second goal, I shot the flowers straight down on a light box, combining the different exposures as layers in Photoshop. The finished image is much along the lines of what I saw in my mind’s eye when I pre-visualized it. In this case, the road from pre-visualization to final image took planning, work, and time—and I feel ...