WATER COLOUR CROCUSES by phil_howcroft

WATER COLOUR CROCUSES

Yesterdays picture taken today (I was too busy yesterday)

But depending what time zone you are viewing this in. it could be Thursdays picture on Saturday, but lets just say I took a picture a day late so I am filling a Thurday with a Friday.

I will post Friday later today or later tomorrow depending what time zone you are in !

Anyway two crocuses from the garden.

I held a bit of white card behind the crocuses and then pointed and shot with my panasonic TZ7 on macro setting.

I've done a crop to take out some unwanted bits of crocuses and then went into Photoshop elements and slid the contrast, saturation, brightness and midtone bars to get this effect. No more than 5 minutes post processing (that's a general rule I try to stick to - if I cannot get a nice image in a few minutes editing then I don't bother - I think it's because I don't have enough patience)

Anyway the result is this image, which looks a bit like a water colour. I've left a bit of green at the bottom (well I left it there because I could not clone it out - 5 minute rule), but I think the green adds a little bit more to the image.

A lot of words in my narrative as usual.

Phil
Like a painted postcard :), good try!
March 11th, 2011  
@vvpe Thanks Veronica for your kind words, I think the card behind the flowers makes it look like a canvas
March 11th, 2011  
I think this is a realistic painting effect :)
March 11th, 2011  
flowers are so cheery and these are perfect.
March 11th, 2011  
It does look like a watercolor painting, Phil - very lovely! The filter you chose gives the appearance of watercolor paper which was a nice touch. It's a great Friday image, and would also work well for Thursday or Saturday. LOLOL. :)
March 11th, 2011  
Beautiful
March 11th, 2011  
@gill Aww a fave, very kind Gill. As for green bits, I suppose they are leaves, but they don't look like leaves !! I didn't intend the image to come out like this it just happened as I played with the slider bars, I don't really know what I'm doing most of the time in photoshop elements !!
March 11th, 2011  
@kerristephens Thanks Kerri, it's good of you to comment
March 11th, 2011  
@meredithwb Meredith , thanks for commenting on the picture, glad I managed to make you smile too.
March 11th, 2011  
@glendq yes Glendq a very true comment, flowers make us all feel better.
March 11th, 2011  
This early sign of Spring is so refreshing. Thanks for explaining the process you used to get the plain background. I've thought about taking pictures of the dogwood tree out on my patio but it never looked very good because of the distraction of the items in the background. Maybe I will try your technique when the flowers bloom.
March 11th, 2011  
This is beautiful..one of my favorite flowers and the image is very strong..love it!
March 12th, 2011  
super shot phil
March 12th, 2011  
It does look like a watercolor. nice.
March 12th, 2011  
Clever effect you've created here .. makes for a very serene picture :o)
March 12th, 2011  
Really like this Phil. Love the colours and thanks for the description of your processing technique. works well - I'm a big fan of the 5 min tweak - any longer and I get bored!
March 12th, 2011  
@allie912 Allison, thanks for the comments , the trick of the card was told to me by a friend who does something similar when photographing butterflies in his garden
March 12th, 2011  
@seattle Cheers Constance :)
March 12th, 2011  
@patsyjphillips Thanks Patsy, crocuses are so fragile, we had some strong winds late yesterday so they looked a lttle sad and battered this morning !
March 12th, 2011  
@andycoleborn Andy thanks for the 'super shot' comment
March 12th, 2011  
@sarahhorsfall Sarah, serene it is :)
March 12th, 2011  
@sparkle Juliette, thanks for your comments, it looks like you do some good 5 minute tweaks in your pictures too
March 12th, 2011  
Beautiful!!!!!
March 13th, 2011  
@wenzi Thank you for the 'beautiful comment', you are too kind :)
March 13th, 2011  
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