I took this picture last weekend by the C&O Canal in Maryland. I used a 100mm Macro on a Canon 40D. I have not sharpened this image. I would appreciate your comments.
Jim, I think this image could really benefit from some post-processing. It looks very dull as is. You can brighten it with highlights or add a bit of exposure in camera. Sharpening would help. And there is too much dead space in the upper two-thirds of the image. Work on it a bit and let's see what it looks like.
Hey Jim, its hard to evaluate the image as it has degraded somewhere n the posting process. It looks like it has potential for a nice image. I like the look of the BG, but would suggest maybe bringing up the flowers just a tad.
I played with your image a bit. Since it has so much negative space at the top, I cropped to a pano to emphasize that feature and make a plus. The ran noise reduction on it 3 times since the resolution was so poor, to try and get the posterization out of the background. Curves to make it lighter.
Nik Color Effex 3.0 Pastel filter at a lower opacity to make it dreamy.
Selective sharpening of the main flower.
Hope you like it!