Purple Lotus

[davidc]

Purple Lotus, taken in the Grand Cayman Botanical Gardens.

iso 250
171mm
f5.6
1/330th sec

And as you can see it was PEEING it down. Combined with the humidity the lens front element was fogging up with just the lens cap on so I'm pleased I got any shots at all, my camera isn't weather sealed and I was starting to get worried

[Nina]

Hi David

Sorry for the late reply, but you posted a lot of images at the time.
I had a little play with your great capture of the lotus, it really is beautiful. I am posting the processing I played around with to emphasize the flower. I quite like the result but what do you think?

Have a good Christmas!

[davidc]

Just trying to spot your tweaks - added a little on top to get the petal fully in frame? (how did you do that?)
Cropped left to move the flower slightly further off centre?
Slightly darkened the background, perhaps even adding a bit of blur?

If those are correct I'd really appreciate knowing how you did it

[Nina]

Spot the difference? You did spot some.
1. Using crop tool I reframed the image to exclude busier leaves on the left and add a little more space at the top. Simply cloned some green stuff at the top.
2. Cloned out the flower stem and yellowing leaf at the bottom.
3. Selected the flower and sharpened a bit more.
4. Ctrl J to duplicate the layer.
5. Hugh saturation on the duplicated layer to adjust brightness down a little then
6. On a layer mask using gradient from the middle lightened the flower only to emphasise it.

That's all I can remember, it is a lot to write but simple to do. Was it worth the bother?

[davidc]

Absolutely - I don't know how to do a lot in PS so having some steps to follow means I can figure out what/why you did them.