That is a good question, and I don't have the answer. I've got some like that I like.

The last one was achieved in post processing. There were hot spots on the face from a combination of an open door letting in daylight and camera flash. Since I shot it in RAW, I was partially able to correct for that by turning the exposure down. By the time I got done making my usual adjustments, levels, etc., the background was almost black, and I liked the effect.

If I find out something that works consistently, I'll try to get back to you.

In the meantime, you might try turning down the exposure compensation and see what that does. Bright flowers, not just white, especially in sunlight and also on overcast days where there is a lot of diffused light bouncing around, can often use -1/3 to -2/3 exposure compensation to keep the colors from washing out; i.e., blown out. You could also try partial metering rather metering the entire scene. A lot of it is dependent on the particular camera, lens, and metering.

Yikes. Aliska, I am so green that I have no idea what I'm doing with all those settings yet....but I'll get out and play some. Thanks!

Good luck. My granddaughter wants me to link to your lovely macro photo, so I came here looking for that. You must be doing something right!

You will learn in time what those settings mean. I have had cameras all my life and just aimed and clicked. Once I got on the net, I started reading, reading and have slowly come to an understanding what a lot of it means, why, the principles behind it, and how your photography can improve by getting away from the programmed settings. I'm by no means in the expert category, just read what others have done and tried it out, learning little by little. Believe me, when the real technical people start talking, I get left behind in a cloud of dust, it is too hard to understand.

Didn't mean to get you confused. Just keep up the good work. That camera looks like a winner. I might want to pick one up sometime for backup and for when I don't feel like dragging all my stuff around.

Just move along at your own pace and have fun with it. That's what it's really about. You are bound to get some great photos and some not so great, goes with the territory.

Another trick, and kind of simple....black posterboard behind your subject. But it can get tough to hold that, the camera, and your position!
JoanMN

Sueh,
There are several things at play when taking a macro; lighting, Depth of Focus (DoF), Metering.

In true macro photos, a serious amateur/pro will use a specified macro lens and a double flash unit like this one:

The DoF in macros is usually really, really shallow. f/1.2 - f3.0, at least that is what I use. with such a shallow DoF the picture will create a very blurry bokeh and if there are dark objects in the back ground then then it will create the illusion of a dark back ground, when really it is just blurred to a point that it is not reconizable. ie:

Metering,, most new cameras have metering options. This is just you telling the camera on what part of picture to adjust the lighting, there is actuall more to it than that, but I confused myself trying to explain it.

Then there is alway PP as aliska stated she had done for her pics. If you have any more question feel free to ask.

Joe

What a great bunch of helpful folks! Thank you for all of your great responses! At this point, the black posterboard is about the best I can do (and understand..LOL!).

This is becoming a great hobby, but I can see it's going to be very time consuming!

I really appreciate all the great comments! And thanks for making me feel comfortable to ask my basic questions....some sites are very intimidating to ask!

With my photo editor I sometimes achieve that effect, though not as well as the two techniques mentioned by joan and zitro joe by bringing up or increasing the "shadow" level. If the thing you are focused on in the foreground is pretty well lit, you can get the background pretty dark doing that. Of course, it affects the item focused on some too, that is why those other techniques give a truer result I am sure. But, its a quick and easy way to achieve some of what you are asking about.

Would you mind telling me how you achieve that effect with you photo editing software? I can't seem to figure it out with my Paintshop!

I don't know who you are asking. Something dark usually has to be there to begin with for it to be realistic.

One thing you can do is use the lasso tool and select the subject, save the selection to the alpha channel (select>save to alpha channel, give it a name, it will now stay with your .psp file but will be lost on any other saved file format) so you don't lose it, save your work as .psp (lossless format and more powerful and flexible for a project) with a new name intermittently so you don't lose it (one name is enough just keep saving over your work file), then feather the selection a couple of pixels, invert the selection and turn down the brightness of the background or paint it all black.

Later I learned to paint masks on a layer to make selecting more precise. It takes time to learn all this, but it is worth the effort. Basically all you do is paint black over everything you want to keep bright, zoom up so you can see the edges better, when you are done painting use the magic wand to make a selection, invert the selection, usually better to feather the selection a couple pixels, and do it that way. It also works well for the color accent effect.

You don't have to do layers to do it. Never work with your original, keep it always in a different file. If you have two renamed versions (window>duplicate image) on your desktop, you can select the painted mask in one image, save it to the alpha channel (look in the menu as described above), then click on the top of the image you want to apply the changes to, load the selection back from the alpha channel, and go from there. Both photos have to be the same size for that to work right.

There are usually several different ways to achieve the same thing.

Unless you use the posterboard, velvet or some black background, which is what pros do in studio setups, if the background isn't naturally somewhat dark to begin with, I'd leave it be. There's nothing wrong with a macro that is well done, sharp and bright subject with a nice blurred, lighter background.

Maybe these aren't what you are after; they just happened, and aren't totally dark. The third one is the one I talked about in my first response to you. These are not the last word in great photographs, I only have a few that tended naturally to go that way with a little extra tweaking, no masks or fancy stuff in post processing.

It was a lot of work just finding these and getting them ready to post. I wouldn't bother with all that other work to make it dark unless it was really special. I checked my exif on these examples, for the two flower shots I had the exposure compensation turned down to -1, for the mother and son shot it was +.33, different cameras, different lighting conditions.

I don't know what that white string thing is in the third one, I had to resize the version I sent to have a print made from, will have to check the print to see if that is present; if so, it should have been cloned out.

{{gwi:2016154}}

{{gwi:2016155}}

{{gwi:2016156}}

Aliska..the white string thing looks like a necklace/chain. If you look close, you can see the latch.*S*

Thanks. It is a little distracting, but I'll leave it alone. It does show up on the print as well it should then.

Sueh,
Also, learn how to use the camera in Full Manual mode. This will turn you into a techinally sound photographer. Understanding how to manipulate the aperture and shutter will help you create almost any picture you envision in your head. If you have good technique, less editing is necessary. I hate editing. In fact, none of the pictures I have posted here have been edited. Even though I did receive some emails acussing me of editing some photos I posted earlier this month, whatever. The less time you spend editing the better.

Joe

I know how to select the right aperture for the most part depending on what kind of dof I want and how low the light is, but I don't know how to pick the right shutter speed. I know what kind of shutter speeds I need, but don't know if the combo will work. Tonight I did find out that the viewfinder will blink a warning if I haven't picked the right one. Also I am supposed to read "Understanding Exposure", I know I should but it's a lot to dig into right now.

I only use full manual when I take night shots (guess until I get what I like, know about what shutter speed to start with depending on aperture, use small aperture to get twinkle lights, etc.) Also I use full manual when I use my external flash because it automatically picks the right flash output for f5.6 which is good for indoor people shots. I usually set shutter speed at 250 and the flash computes the rest.

How do you do it if I may ask? You have to be pretty experienced to confidently shoot full manual.

With my last film camera I used the flash in the late afternoon when taking photos of flowers. That produced a black background. Haven't tried it yet with my DSLR.