not in the same league as those above but ...
nativesweatpea by NiknoDave, on Flickr
not in the same league as those above but ...
nativesweatpea by NiknoDave, on Flickr
The only issue I have with this crop is the orientation of the leading edge of the Dahlia (left side) being too close to the left edge of the frame. It rather strongly confines the initial sense of "flowing." Either a portrait framing as has already been suggested, or perhaps breaking it into five panels and doing something abstract with it, as it certainly has that possiblity.
Background is too much the same color as the foreground flower which seems to limit its depth.
Last edited by MiniChris; 30th July 2011 at 12:20 PM.
So many wonderful contributions! I've been very much enjoying this thread, even though I've been a bit silent, lately.
Last edited by Letrow; 2nd August 2011 at 09:10 AM.
Thanks Peter: When shooting I expose just so the highlights on the whites are not blown, and when processing try to get the whites as white as I can without blowing the highlights. When shooting with the 18 - 200 I've finally started to become far more aware of my background and try to angle around until I get something that will make the flower stand out, when I'm using the close up filters it really doesn't matter too much because DOF is so shallow. With processing it's more a case of working the other colours and the background to try and make the white stand out. For instance I might tone down the green in both saturation and Luminosity (in LR) or vice versa, whichever works best. In the first shot I think increasing the yellow luminosity setting for the inside petals made the white stand out more. In Elements I also use the "Replace Colour" tool to pick out any distracting colours in the background and try to tone them down. This does not work if the same tones are in the flower, but in these two it worked quite well. In the first one, distracting colours were lightened and desaturated and in the second shot the background colours were darkened.
Wendy