painterly

They (whoever "they" are) say that painters want to get their work to look like a photograph, whereas photographers strive to make their images look like paintings.

Now, while this isn't always the case, there are times when I don't want an image I've taken to just be a 100% accurate depiction of the subject I photographed.  In today's image for instance, I wanted the subject (yes, another dandelion) to take on an ethereal rather than realistic look.

To do so I shot two images:

- the first one focused on the dandelion but shot through some grasses right in front of the lens

- the second one shot as an out of focus blur.

I then blended the two images in Photoshop before twiddling the clarity and texture sliders and playing around with vibrance and saturation until I got the desired result.  You might not think it worthy of the effort but I rather like it for its more dreamy look.

Fujifilm X-H2, Laowa 65mm f2.8 ultra-macro lens
2 images, each at 1/125th of a second at f2.8, ISO 125
handheld

This week's video concentrates on making those softer, more painterly (I'll say it - artistic!!) images: