Dragon of Gold (unprocessed)

"Make no judgements where you have no compassion." 

- Anne McCaffrey

Today I am sad. Anne McCaffrey, whose Pern novels I read and re-read most avidly in my younger years, has died.

As Justine Larbalestier put it on twitter: "When I was a tween I wanted to be a dragonrider more than anything else in the world." Just reading that makes me tear up. Every time.

So here's a dragon - a gold dragon, even - for Anne McCaffrey.

I cropped out a sliver of the top and bottom where you could see past the edge of my iPad (the background surface). I then cloned out a lot of spots and bits of yuck that were apparent because I used a flash. I added a duplicate layer set to 'multiply' with opacity around half. I then brushed on a curves adjustment (a raised luminance curve) to the dragon - except for the far wing, which I left alone.

Final version here.