Dogwood

[Rita]

I captured this image earlier this evening. Been playing with different PP on some images and this is one that I
tried something different on. My goal was to leave some of the greenery as subtle background, I didn't want the leaves to be sharp. Does this work?
Is there a way that I can improve on this type of look?

Any critiques are most welcomed.

[IzzieK]

My neighbour has this kind of dogwood .. ours is white. If your only goal is that the greenery be blurred without the PP, then you did not achieve your goal. If your background greenery is blurred because you set your camera on the widest setting available for the blur to happen, then you have achieved your goal. How did you achieve the blurred background then? Is it the first one I mentioned or the second one?

Rita I think it was last year or two magnolia years ago that Jack (flashjack) told me to use my widest focal lens on my zoom lens as I move closer and separate only a flower or a set of flowers from my tree and shoot it. I was crazy enough not to use my tripod because of all things, I chose a higher level flower when I could have chosen one nearer my face. Since I have never done that before, I did it and did it and did it until I thought I got it...I never forgot the process then...I am a slow learner, but am trainable...

If you are happy with the result of your effort here, pp-ed or not, then you have achieved your goal. And btw, nice processing on the flower itself. If this is mine, I would have taken another angle for comparison. The curves here are well pronounced and sexy, pardon my French. It is the texture that got me here. You have nailed this flower very well in terms of sharpness that is not glaring, sharp but soft to look at. Excellent job! Looking at it again for the third umpteenth time, I am beginning to like this shot more, it has that moody sort of look to it...

I captured this image earlier this evening. Been playing with different PP on some images and this is one that I tried something different on. My goal was to leave some of the greenery as subtle background, I didn't want the leaves to be sharp. Does this work?
Is there a way that I can improve on this type of look?

Any critiques are most welcomed.

[Shadowman]

It works, the crop is a bit tight on top and bottom though.

[gregj1763]

Very nice, crop is tight as John pointed out but a square crop might suit this image perhaps ?

[JohnRostron]

Nice. I agree with Izzie, but I think that the angle is fine. This would be my favoured angle when photographing flowers. The flower itself does look slightly soft, but this does not detract from the composition.

John

[bnnrcn]

It works nicely Rita You can also try the 'surface blur' function in PS if you want another interesting look. But this is not a suggestion to improve the image above, I like it as is.

[Rita]

Izzie, in the original the leaves are sharp. As I was playing in PS I got the leaves taking on the blurred look and ran with it a bit to try for a different approach. So yes, it was done in PP. Of the images I took of this I preferred this one over the others. I have been doing a lot of experimenting lately and this is one of the experiments.

John, I can fix the crop so it is less tight. Thank you for the comment.

Greg, I hadn't thought of a square crop but I will give it a try

Thanks for commenting John.

Binnur I will try some of the blur on the flower and see how it turns out.