In my main album is a shot that uses the natural daylight ( http://365project.org/taffy/365/2013-04-07). These flowers were from the same neighbor's garden, and also fairly small (these were about 2" off the ground). They've been processed quite a bit to make them more low-key and to smooth out the details. I don't know if it really 'works' very well, but I learned a lot about multiple processing steps in creating it and like it better than in the SOOC version.
What a contrast from the other photo! I like how you describe what you did to get to this point, and I know that the processing always teaches me new things so it's always worthwhile.
@jyokota@cisco@jaynspain Thanks Junko, Cisco, and Jayne. I like processing that gives a totally different mood than the original -- more fun somehow than just fixing something that went wrong. So this really was interesting for me to try to turn a brightly lit and bright blue flower into something dark and smooth. I'm glad you liked the result.
@gerry Thanks for viewing large and fav'ing. I did notice the larger view was easier to see.