No jail time with this weed.

[JBW]

For all of the beauty within this weed I find it devilishly hard to photograph.

[Shadowman]

How so, is it the wetted green leaves that is causing the issues?

[Round Tuit]

Brian,
You would have needed a circular polarizer to reduce the glare on the green leaves. You can tone that down in PP but it is difficult to match the effect of the CPL.
The main problem with the flower itself is that the red in the outer petal has clipped and therefore you have lost the texture in them. The only solution that I can see there is a reshoot keeping an eye on the red channel of the histogram. It is possible that this flower's colours, when properly exposed, cannot be displayed on an sRGB screen.
I noticed that you have place the bloom close to a rule of third point in the frame. I have found that a more central position works better for me when using a square frame.
FWIW
André

[Geoff F]

A very tricky scene, Brian, with exposure levels which are probably outside the range of just one shot; so maybe a bit of HDR of some form may be required. Possibly on the difficult side to merge 2 or 3 shots successfully though.

I would start by shooting without any direct sunshine, but still not easy. Flower portraits can be such a struggle at times.

With this particular image I wonder about slightly toning down the saturation on troublesome colours then very carefully and selectively adjusting the brightness levels, possibly using some different Blend Modes on those layers? So as to work with Colour and Luminosity on separate layers?

[JBW]

How so, is it the wetted green leaves that is causing the issues?

that's part of the problem. The leaves are dry. They are simply shiny and highly textured.

[JBW]

Brian,
You would have needed a circular polarizer to reduce the glare on the green leaves. You can tone that down in PP but it is difficult to match the effect of the CPL.
The main problem with the flower itself is that the red in the outer petal has clipped and therefore you have lost the texture in them. The only solution that I can see there is a reshoot keeping an eye on the red channel of the histogram. It is possible that this flower's colours, when properly exposed, cannot be displayed on an sRGB screen.
I noticed that you have place the bloom close to a rule of third point in the frame. I have found that a more central position works better for me when using a square frame.
FWIW
André

I'll bear this in mind my next shoot.

[JBW]

A very tricky scene, Brian, with exposure levels which are probably outside the range of just one shot; so maybe a bit of HDR of some form may be required. Possibly on the difficult side to merge 2 or 3 shots successfully though.

I would start by shooting without any direct sunshine, but still not easy. Flower portraits can be such a struggle at times.

With this particular image I wonder about slightly toning down the saturation on troublesome colours then very carefully and selectively adjusting the brightness levels, possibly using some different Blend Modes on those layers? So as to work with Colour and Luminosity on separate layers?

I'm going to have to wait for my hard drive return so i can use C1.