Becoming Echinacea

Becoming Echinacea 2, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

When I saw this Echinacea bud, I knew the image would have to be black and white because the flower was still an entirely monochromatic green. Spectacular colors would come later in the flower’s life.

I photographed the Echinacea in early evening with my 85mm macro lens and a 36mm extension tube for 1/2 second exposure at f/16 and ISO 200. I tried some longer exposures as well, with the lens fully stopped down, but there was always some slight movement to ruin the sharpness.

In Photoshop, I created three different color versions using LAB color before using adjustment layers to convert to black and white.

The version at the beginning of this story is based on an Equalization adjustment to the L channel. I like it best of the three.

The version below is pretty close to normally processed. The version far below is based on an Inversion adjustment applied to the L channel.