After the hangover

Firstly a MASSIVE THANKS to everyone who popped by and commented/viewed my 200th blip. Got spotlighted and also had a great laugh at just how many people hit the same blipday (100th, 200th, 300th, 365th & a 720th) around the same time.

I am now looking into selling my shots (Or even giving them away to a good home if anyone wants them)

Got a few printed up now for local places etc. See how I go. Today's blip was captured after dropping Zoe off at nursery and then walking towards Davidsons Mains for my dental appointment.

Played with it a bit in photoshop (Not done any serious real playing in ages) so thought I would dust of my trusty high DPI mouse and see what I could remember.


TECH STUFF

Firstly lifted the main flower from background plate to keep it clean, sharpened it up and boosted the colour slightly to help it "pop" more.

For the background I duplicated the layer and change the upper layer to a Sepia tone, set the Fill of the layer to around 80% to let some of the colour from below through. Combined the two background layers and then masked the flower area (Otherwise there would have been a stange looing blurry border around it, causing it to blend in more) and used a light Gaussian blur to create a sense of DoF & help the main flower really pop out from the picture
(My camera will focus on one thing itself but always tries to keep the rest of the shot as in focus as possible).

Am quite proud of this and suprised myself a little with how well I done, any feedback/comments are very welcome.