Opal Ice

I shot this photo and put a filter effect on this then inverted it- to change it up , reduced the saturation. I left the tree in the center on purpose I feel the trunk leads you thru the photo-It reminds me of the holidays

Denise,
You have far more experience than I with art in a variety of media, and it really shows in the work you've been showing us in the OOTB forums. I don't even see possibilities like this when I look at the world; your vision amazes me. I like the "opalescent" look you've created. The trunk and thicker (light colored) branches are definitely what ties this image together, and organizes what would otherwise be chaos in all the small dark branches. But as the more prominent branches dwindle in size as they get farther from the trunk, they start to blend into the tangle of smaller branches, and the organizing effect is lost, at least for me. (But perhaps that's your intent.) To my eye, there's a little too much on the left and right sides that's outside the reach of those prominent organizing branches, and the opposing prominent branches of another tree on the right pull my attention a bit. IMHO, it would be a bit stronger with about 10% cropped off the left, and 20% off the right. Of course, that opinion is derived from my own world view, biases, and preferences. It's your image, and your message.

Chris, I played around w/ the crop a hundred times-but that was on the orig. before all the color. I cropped it as you suggested and I like it. I think sometimes we see the orig.photo and it blocks our vision for the new one. Anyway thankyou for your suggestions -you know I trust your judgement. I feel we are on the same page w/ alot of our thoughts.I hope this is what you had in mind if not let me know. I had to do it on my laptop from the downloaded image-hope it holds up!

Denise,
That's it. Glad I could contribute a bit.

BTW, have you discovered the "hide" option on the crop tool? It's only availabe if you change the name of the "background" layer to something else. Then you can select "hide" instead of the default "delete" in the tool option bar, and crop becomes non-destructive. If you want to change the crop later, select Image > Reveal All, and the whole uncropped image is back. When I do this, I also add an empty layer named "crop hide" at the top of the layer stack to remind me that I did it.

Chris, I was not aware of that- I will try it out in am when I crop this on my main comp. Thanks!

Lady Denise,
I like the second version better; it focuses more on the main subject. I like the frost like effect; giving it a winterly frosty feeling...well done...:cool:

I'm glad you saw what I saw Chris because I'm not sure I could have articulated it as well as you did. All I knew was that I wanted to see a vertical instead of a horizontal.

The repost is MUCH better Denise...now your eye goes to the main trunk and lands on the very cool effect you've produced. This is another great Christmas card!

You are amazing Denise !!! Don't know what to say .... this is so different and good !!!