The path is not always straight but the journey need not be less enjoyable

[JBW]

[Werner]

nice colours and lighting.

[Mark von Kanel]

beautiful Brian, the best of yours to date in my opinion.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[Stagecoach]

Good to see the PP is remaining subtle Brian, try a plain white border.

How did you achieve the dark background on this one?

Grahame

[JBW]

nice colours and lighting.

the colours did come out nicely. The sun supplied the lighting.

[JBW]

beautiful Brian, the best of yours to date in my opinion.

thank-you.

[JBW]

Good to see the PP is remaining subtle Brian, try a plain white border.

How did you achieve the dark background on this one?

Grahame

As you can see from the original the background was dark. The sunlight was on the flower but not the bush. I am experimenting with a new (to me) pp technique. I crop in Picassa, do some basic sharpening, cloning, cleaning up in Gimp using layers, then merge them all and move it over to Rawtherapee. In RT I do some noise reduction and some other adjustments (depending upon the shot). Then I move back into Gimp and open up the new RT shot in layers without changing the colour set of RT to the set in Gimp. Merge the two together do some final sharpening and put on the frame in Picassa.

The result can be a more vibrant but not garish foreground enhanced by a darker background as it was here.
brian