Bronze composite

[Douglas Bolt]

Canon 7D, 1/250, f8, ISO 800, HH, nearly FF.
PP: soft light blend 30%, touched up some of the petels and sharpen.

A much different version of this same flower is in the OOTB forum showing the effects of a Polar Coordinates filter.

[Ken Childs]

Doug, I feel the light on this is a bit harsh so anything you can do to tone it down would help. Also, I'm not in love with the comp. You probably did it this way to keep the entire leaf in the shot but I think it might look better with the flower more toward the UL, 'looking' towards the LR.

[Anita Bower]

Doug:

I looked at the version in OOTB and like it very much. In it, the very bright colors work beautifully. Here, the light seems harsh. I don't know if that is the result of flash or PP. Composition-wise, I would crop some off the top. The leaf on the right bothers me. I'm wondering if when you took this photo you had in mind using the polar coordinates filter.

[Douglas Bolt]

Thanks, Anita.

The only PP on the above image was a Soft Light blend layer (~30%) and some sharpening. I didn't much like the image as is, but I thought it might look nice after PC filter. The green leaves didn't look all that good in the first PC attempt, but selecting just the orange flower and putting it on a black background made a big improvement. I posted it here mainly as a basis for the PC version. I agree with the comments about the above image.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Douglas,
Can't add much to the advice given above and your self assesment.....but another idea for you in the field.....If the leaf on the RH side is a distraction....eliminate it with an in camera comp something like the repost! Remember to explore the possible angles.....even w/o the camera so you can try different things! I would still eliminate some of the smaller bright green things....but you get the idea.