Denise McKay
About the Image(s)
On July 3rd I headed out to my local botanical garden to see what was in bloom. After sorting through a couple of hundred photos, this rose became my subject for July.
There were not many roses in bloom that were still hardy, but this cream rose with pink edges really caught my eye. The background consisted of leaves and some mulch on the ground. I wanted to keep the center of the rose in focus but blur the background, so I used F 5.6. In Lightroom I cropped, adjusted the overall exposure, and using the radial filter on just the rose I increased exposure, clarity and adjusted the white and black points. I used the spot removal tool to begin taking out some of the dark leaves under the rose that I didn't like. I then hopped over to Photoshop and used the lasso tool to select more parts of the leaves I wanted removed and used the content aware fill to change that area. I continued to use the content aware fill to select, change and blend certain parts of the background.
Back in Lightroom I used the radial filter to mask the rose and increased the exposure on just the background to lighten it up a bit. That final result is Original 2.
However, I decided to take a few more steps in Topaz Studio 2. There, I added 3 filter layers, my favorite Smudge filter which allows me to play with the lines and curves of the flower, and a texture filter that I lightly applied at about 25% opacity in normal blend mode. I masked and removed most of the texture from the center of the rose, then lightly removed texture from the edges (using different levels of opacity) to try to blend them into the background better. The texture smoothed and blended the background a bit more than the original.
The last filter layer was to add a vignette around the edge in a very light grayish shade. So that was my final image. The Original 2 and Final image gives me two different versions to think about!
This round’s discussion is now closed!
10 comments posted
  Posted: 07/07/2021 18:56:42
Thanks for your comments!   Posted: 07/22/2021 21:56:14
Love those summer flowers...consider printing them small, and then arranging the framed results in a grouping! We all love to photograph their beauty, and perhaps they should live outside of the computer!   Posted: 07/12/2021 14:28:45
Did you use a blend mode for your vignette? I am interested in different effects using vignettes. The light grey gives a soft feel :)   Posted: 07/20/2021 16:58:42
Thank you for your comment.   Posted: 07/22/2021 21:51:57