Snowflakes

Spring has certainly not yet sprung here...nearly a foot of snow and still snowing! I brightened the snowflakes just a bit in Viveza. Smoothed the background in Topaz Detail 3 and added a fractalius layer to the background only. Sharpened the snowflakes. That bright "pearl-thing" is really a sun spot. Not sure if it should stay now that it has been smoothed and fracted with the rest of the bkgd.

I like the sharp crystals against the softer background. The Fractalius treatment works very nicely behind the sharp crystals, and I like the movement it gives. Still uncertain, myself, about the sun spot, I flipped the image vertically to change the direction of the diagonal. With that done, I definitely like the spot. The blue and white color scheme is very striking.

Nancy, without the little brown "stem" at the bottom this would look like a space shot to me, especially with the sun spot. Nicely seen:S3:

Nice image and application.

I have double thoughts on the spot. I think I would have eliminated it, but it also can be part of the composition and remain.

I do see a redish area just above the "flake" in the middle of the image. It is more distracting for me than the spot, but that is my personal thought. If there were more colors I might not have noticed it as much. Otherwise I like the color patterns. Again, my $0.01 worth ... inflation is hitting everything! :e3

Hi Nancy, I like the concept but for the loose ends. Thus the even more abstract repost....

ps: I like the sun!

In the thumbnail version, I thought it was a con trail. But, opened, I saw it for what it is. Nice work. I love blue and white together. I think Artie's repost works best. Before seeing Artie's version, I was going to suggest copying the sun spot into several other places. Nice work.

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions. Good crop suggestion, Artie. I think taking some off the bottom also grounds that sunspot better.