Woodland Bluebell Angmering Final

Normally Bluebells are at peak in late April. This year it is mid May. Sussex in the south of England has some of the best displays of wild bluebells in the UK. This location is one of the best there is on the South Downs near Angmering at Angmering Park Woods a little east of Patching. In the middle of the woods there is a carpet of Bluebells as far as the eye can see.

With bluebells I like to get in close and focus on one. This shot is of the wild original English variety with a bell shape and the flowers on one side of the stem unlike the invading Spanish variety which grow upright with flowers on both sides.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A550 with a Sigma 28-80 zoom.  Setting were f5.6 and 80mm for reduced depth of field. I used the A550 for its folding screen to make it easier to get a low down image. One RAW image was opened in Photoshop Camera RAW first to create 2 extra exposures for HDR at 2EV separation.

Photomatix

From the original  picture 3 images at 2EV separation were outputted in Photomatix using the fusion adjusted preset.

Photoshop

Topaz adjust was used to bring in an additional detail using Topaz Stylised preset.

Levels used to enhance.

Contrast increased a little.

Vibrance increased 35 points

Saturation greens reduced  by 59 points to avoid an overdone look.

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

Duplicate layer Noiseware Pro and a little sharpening.

Second duplicate layer with mask to apply extra sharpening and contrast with low amount and high radius using Unsharp mask (Clarity Effect) The settings were 31 amount and 31 radius. This effect was limited with a mask to the main Bluebell to keep a soft look in the rest of the picture.

A crop was used to remove highlights from the top of the picture

The clone and burn tools were used for tidy up.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the original image, then the tonemapped image and then the final result.

Original image

Woodland Bluebell Angmering Original

Tonemapped image

Woodland Bluebell Angmering Tonemapped

Final Image

Woodland Bluebell Angmering Final

For licence see Woodland Bluebell Angmering

Edwin Jones