While walking around my backyard for some High Dynamic Range(HDR) imaging, I decided to get up close and personal with some of my Nandina bushes, aka, Heavenly Bamboo. Since we have at least thirty of these prolific plants (they grow like weeds), I chose this macro shot where the color of the berries is just about half way to full red.

Processing: Five images were loaded into Nik HDR Efex Pro where I modified the structure for additional depth.  I used a Control Point on the berries to enhance the color and contrast. With Adobe Photoshop CS6, I worked with Shadows/Highlights to further balance the tonality, Hue/Saturation to get realistic colors and then Curves to add more depth to the total scene. I finally used High Pass filter for a small amount of sharpening. With the Nikkor 105mm Micro lens being so sharp, I didn’t need much help with crispness.

For the monochrome version below, I popped the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 and brought the overall exposure down a bit. Then, with a Control Point on the berries, I added more detail and lighter exposure to help them stand out.Equipment used: Nikon D700 with 105mm f/2.8 AF Nikkor lens. f/32, ISO 800, Bogen/Manfrotto 3221 tripod with Manfrotto MH054M0-Q2 ball head.