Cherries signify summer and culinary delights. They brighten photographs as a primary subject or an accompaniment. There are over 1,000 variety of cherries from sweet to sour covering a broad spectrum of reds. Cherry reds also pop up during the holidays, celebrations and signify romance. We'll highlight a few post processing techniques and share ideas for photographing cherries.
As red is favorite color of many, it can have its challenges in appearing in its true color versus appearing over saturated. For tips on photographing reds check out Jason Row's article of How to Keep Your Reds Under Control and Kent Dufault's Using the Color Red for Impact in Your Photography.
Post-Processing:
For a little inspiration from image to post processing, we'll use a variety of cherry reds with fresh fruits from the tree.
The three photographs below are of the same cluster of cherries. The first two were the same file processed differently. The first raw file was edited in Lightroom with basic post processing adjustments.
Here's the same file that was taken in to Photoshop and processed with a little more drama in mind. Using Levels and Curves, the colors were punched up quite a bit.
The third photograph of the same cluster was taken the same morning by moving a few feet. The other two had the bokeh background from the greens and reds. By shifting my position just slightly, the background picked up the blue sky invoking a different, softer feel. Processed in Lightroom, I added a bit more with Google Nik's Color Efex Pro using the Detail Extractor preset.
Cherries shine in macros, portraits and in studios.
Ideas for Photographing Cherries
Macro: A single, simple cherry adds a pop of color.
Portrait: A bounty of sweet cherries on a branch look inviting and ready to be picked.
Studio: Cherries satisfy a sweet tooth and flavor to a photograph.
Cherry on top of a sweet treat:
A sweet standalone treat.
A cherry splash!
Cheery cherries brighten screen savers, gift cards, calendars and framed prints. They are subjects that are fun to photograph in studios and in their natural state.
Whether indoors or outside, there is another challenge when photographing cherries. Not eating them!
2 Comments
Great article, I love photographing cherries, too!
Thanks Tersha!! Have a good one!