tulips forever

[Nancy Bell]

Earlier this summer I discovered a beautiful bed of tulips on the Colorado State University property. My goal in using in-camera multiple exposure was to create a softness that was more color than detail. In processing I used Topaz Simplify underpainting to add an additional layer of softness and diffusion. A layer of fractalius to somewhat define and separate the two main flowers from the bkgd. Then because I like to experiment I went into Flaming Pear and used Kyoto color to add saturation and a slight shift in color. I wish I had noticed in camera that I clipped the lower tips of the left tulip.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Nancy, this is beautiful. I love the soft colors and the softness of the entire image. The background is perfect

[Wendy Kates]

I love the lines and detail of the foreground tulips against the muted background. The subtlety of the colors and the softness of the overall image is very soothing. Just beautiful.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

I love the tones, it looks like it has been cross-processed. I wonder about a slight darkening of the petal that is the lightest? Thanks for sharing your workflow. Will have to check out Kyoto colour.

[gary ellwein]

A well thought out, elegant, soothing image. I'm with Jackie concerning toning down the brightest portions of the image.

[Nancy Bell]

Thanks all for your comments. Appreciate the advice on toning down the brighter areas.

[Dennis Bishop]

This is beautiful, Nancy. The colors are appealingly soft, and the composition is wonderful. I'd been using a second-party divine proportion tool in my own work, but it had some limitations. The recent cropping grids in Photoshop are very good, and they confirmed my impression that the composition is very good in terms of both golden ratio rectangles and triangles. The opposing diagonals add a lot, I think.

The central part of the lower left tulip is strong enough that it doesn't matter to me that parts of some of the petals are missing. I darkened some of the lighter/brighter parts of the image to see how that'd look, but I don't think I'd change that much, if at all.