colored leaves

About a week ago, a small tree that has beautiful leaves every Fall was putting on a wonderful display. After shooting it and some other plants and foliage, I noticed a striking oak leaf on the lawn and decided to see what I could do with it. Nearby were two other fallen leaves: one from a different oak species and a maple leaf, so I arranged them with the first oak leaf on top and figured I'd deal with the grass in the background later.

Nikon D3s, ISO 1000, f/8, three-exposure HDR at 1 EV increments, 105mm macro lens

processing highlights

• Gaussian blurred a duplicate of the original image and masked the effect off the leaves
• Topaz Simplify -- saved watercolor preset
• Alien Skin Snap Art -- saved watercolor wash preset, Color blend mode, 52% opacity
• two masked Belle Fleur textures -- Luminosity, 73%; Subtract, 36%
• Nik Viveza -- locally reduce saturation
• Digital Film Tools Rays -- Linear Dodge, 78%, masked
• three Fractalius layers -- saved black & white presets, Multiply, various opacities, two masked
• Simplify -- saved black & white edges preset, Multiply, 63%
• Snap Art Line Art -- saved black & white preset, Multiply, 61%
• gradient vignette

Wonderful! I love the colors and outline effect. All the "stuff" you do really pays off!

I like the sombre colours and the decay in the leaves. You did a good job of negating the grass. I like the leaf at the bottom which has not started the process of decay, nice touch:S3: The BG is wonderful.

Dennis,

Greetings. A real beauty. I usually use IE but when I'm evaluating color I take a look at the rendering in Firefox (which is the closest to my eye to the PS rendering). I kinda lean toward the IE rendering for this one, meaning that a little boost in saturation would work for me. I particularly like the lines especially the delicate touch. If it were mine I would work a little on the appearance of a halo on the leftmost part of the oak leaf. Thanks for posting.

Cheers,

-Michael-

Dennis, I really like the subtle blend of blues, greens, yellows and reds. The contrast with the decaying elements of the leaf is striking as well.

Dennis, this is beautiful. I think the key to making this a successful image was the first step - the Gaussian blur on the background - it sets everything up nicely.:S3:

Nice composition Dennis, the leaves up here are just starting to fall. Has a real graphic art look to it..

Lovely! This glows like a stained glass window. Beautiful combination of blurred and detailed, great lighting and a gorgeous pallette of colors. Always awed by your workflow.