From Clicking to Creating-Week 12

Macro photography is the subject this week in the Dogwood 52, in the category of technical. Macro photography is something I like to shoot sometimes, but not really a lot. So because I’m not a super serious macro photographer, I don’t have the “real” macro gear. There are lenses, extension tubes, and special filters, all to enable those who love it, to get really up close and personal with their subject. If I find something that I think would make a nice close up shot, I will get as close as my lens will allow, and still be able to focus. I can also use the zoom factor of the lens, to get even closer. This is usually enough for what I want.

I made this photo for this weeks prompt the other night. I was out walking at sunset and stopped to enjoy the scenery. I looked down and noticed a bit of fluff on a plant. I went to investigate, and found this spider and spider nest.

Perfect!! I needed a macro shot for this week. Obviously this isn’t “super” macro, but it was close enough for me.

I wanted to highlight the spiders and their web, so I applied a little bit of vignette to the outside of this image. This is the photo before I applied the vignette, and this is where you can find the tool for doing this.

(click to enlarge images)

The vignette tool has a lot of variations you can try out. This is an extreme example of what the feather slider can do. I have turned it completely down here, and it creates a solid circle.

If you take the top slider to the right, it creates a light vignette, rather than a dark one.

Again, this is an extreme example to give you an idea what the roundness slider will do. You can adjust this one to just the corners, or to cover a lot of the outer edges.

Here, I am moving the midpoint and the roundness.

When you are moving the sliders, you can hold down the Alt or Opt key and get what I call the x-ray view of what that slider is actually doing. This is handy to get a better idea of how the different sliders are effecting your image.

This is how I would really use a vignette for this photo. Just subtle enough to make a difference.

The best thing to do, is just experiment with the different sliders. Play around with the different effects, and see what you can create. The easiest way to get the sliders back to neutral, is to double click in the middle.

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The 2 Lil Owls this week had me scrambling to think of something. The prompt is fences, and since we have been in the back of beyond, I haven’t really seen any fences. So I decided to portray just that. No fences, no barriers. Just wide open country.

Don’t fence me in.

What have you guys created this week?