A Different Kind of Fall Color

This shot was taken with the camera pointed down. Straight down. To get far enough above the berries, I had to extend the tripod so high I couldn't see through the viewfinder without standing on my tiptoes and using a right angle attachment pointed out to the side. I knew I'd managed to get the berries in front of the two larger leaves and that there were some leaves curling in the background. However, until I started the processing, I had no idea about all the other colors in the out-of-focus background.

7 exposure HDR
ISO 1000 (the breeze was blowing), f/5, 105mm macro lens

Alien Skin Snap Art -- Oil Paint
Viveza -- to tone down some distracting bright spots in the background and subdue an electric pink on the stems
levels, curves, and a slight gradient vignette

Dennis, This is a perfect example of why I like Snap Art. The painterly look is not overdone. I like the muted colors and the way you composed this. It reminds me of an old oil painting.:S3: Nice job.

Dennis, I've never used Snap Art but I really like the results you got here. At first I thought I would like some cropped from the left but I think it would ruin the composition. It does look like an old oil painting. Nice:S3:

Dennis...This grew on me the more I looked at it! Nice processing. You might consider toning down the light spot in the UC just a bit!

Hi Dennis, very nice filtering...love the effect. They look like dogwood berries?

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Originally Posted by Andrew McLachlan

Hi Dennis, very nice filtering...love the effect. They look like dogwood berries?

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You might be right, Andrew. I knew it wasn't what the dogwood trees in our yard are like, so I did a search to see if something else shows up with that name. Sure enough. Although I didn't check exhaustively, they might be from a gray dogwood or a northern swamp dogwood. It was definitely more a bush than a tree. I should head out with a botany guide. There were also some red berries and black berries on bushes I couldn't identify.

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Originally Posted by Cheryl Slechta

Dennis, I've never used Snap Art but I really like the results you got here. At first I thought I would like some cropped from the left but I think it would ruin the composition. It does look like an old oil painting. Nice:S3:

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I'm a great fan of Snap Art, Cheryl. This image is one of only a few in which I didn't lower the opacity and blend the layer, but I've been trying out more of their many presets and may just leave more of them on their own instead of combined with another filter. The program offers many user-contollable variations on each type of preset and has a good masking option. The company's tech support is very responsive, and the software developers seem to do a good job of incorporating solutions when an issue arises. Cave paintings have always appealed to me, and I think I'm going to suggest they add that to their list of painting styles.

Dennis, I love the painting effect... great use of the filters.