Three Chives

[Anita Bower]

I love the color and shape of the flowers of Chives.
Taken outdoors, evening, Nikon D300, 105mm macro, f4.5, 1/160, ISO 800, handheld.
Processed in Elements 10: slight crop, S-H, Brightness/Contrast, Clone, Paint, Saturate and Desaturate Sponge, Viveza, Color Efex Pro>Soft Focus (minor change), Topaz DeNoise.

[Arthur Morris]

Love the repeating pattern. Used Denise Ippolito cloning on a layer + Layer Mask for BKGR clean-up, removed the black speck from the main bud, and ran a layer of my NIK 50-50 custom filter on all three buds. All as descibed in detail in Digital Basics (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=252).

[Anita Bower]

Arthur: I appreciate your work on my image--I like the results.
I debated about that black spot, as it is actually part of the flower, but, I do think it looks better cloned out. I had left in the pink out-of-focus flowers on purpose, having removed some. I do like the clean look to your version. Maybe mine would work better if there were more pink blobs. I do think I need to remove the one that is behind the main bud.
I suppose that I would learn what your NIK 50-50 custom filter is if i bought Digital Basics. I'm wondering how much of it would apply to someone like me who uses Elements, not Photoshop CS.

[Arthur Morris]

It is in Digital Basics along with a ton of other great stuff; it is simply a layer with a combo of 50% opacity Detail Extractor and 50% opacity Tonal Contrast, all in COlor Efex Pro. Why? I am in a hurry....

[Bob Miller]

Hi Anita....I like Art's version but I also can see what you mean about having more oof pink blubs.What bothers me is the lower stem that doesn't seem to lead anywhere

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Anita. The vertical comp with the three flowers works very well! Artie's repost has more "pop" - both work for me depending on the look you are going for. I don't mind the OOF pink blobs in the upper background, but the one in the LRC tends to draw my eye away from your subjects. The image is nicely thought out and executed!

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like the image, I have applied a very simple curve adjustment to the principal flower head. Initially I tried a USM at a high setting but this emphasised the highlights too much. Then I went to curves, all I did was to select the head then a curves layer and in the palette you can select from a choice of presets, at first I tried linear but that didn't quite work then I tried increase contrast but then of course that made the brights too bright so I tried "Darker RGB" and this was the result.

[Anita Bower]

I like the image, I have applied a very simple curve adjustment to the principal flower head. Initially I tried a USM at a high setting but this emphasised the highlights too much. Then I went to curves, all I did was to select the head then a curves layer and in the palette you can select from a choice of presets, at first I tried linear but that didn't quite work then I tried increase contrast but then of course that made the brights too bright so I tried "Darker RGB" and this was the result.
I like the effect of the curves adjustment. It emphasizes that one bud. Thank you for doing it and for describing your process.

[PhilCook]

Lovely use of dof Anita, simplistic and friendly on the eye image .....if the one budless stem wasn't there it would be even nicer...lovely portrayal of the Chive flower