It’s hard get white right.

When photographing this beautiful Dahlia at Longwood Gardens National Dahlia show, I looked for flowers that offered curls in the center. With the variety of display, they were few and far in between. But this white one certain didn’t disappoint.

Using the Lensbaby Velvet 85mm, I selected a mid-range aperture to get most of the flower in focus. There were some flaws in the flower so with the RAW image, I used Lightroom for the initial adjustments such as Lens correction and such before bringing it to Photoshop for spot removal.

While I had exposed to the right, some of the detail blended in along the edges of the flower petals so I then exported the image into the Nik collection Color Efex Pro and brightened the center and then used the Detail Extractor at a reduced opacity to help bring out the edges.

The dahlias were incredible at the show and there were so many to enjoy. We were able to use tripods in the morning, but at the strike of noon it’s like Cinderella who had to run before she was returned to her original self. All tripods are to be tucked away for the reset of the day.

It’s still been raining like cats and dogs here in Maryland, so hopefully this bright dahlia will bring cheer to your day.

Below is the original image with just the minor Lightroom adjustments which are applied upon import using my own custom preset.