Red Christmas Cactus

[Round Tuit]

I have a new Christmas cactus that finally bloomed today. This one is red which is a first for me. There are a few white spots on two of the petals that I will clone out. I am debating whether I should also open up the shadows on the bloom.



P.S. I cloned the white spots.

[DanK]

I like this. They are an interesting flower but hard to put into a good composition. I think you have. The diagonal works well.

If it were mine, I would open up the shadows on the petals somewhat, and I would probably also burn the anthers, which in places exceed L = 90. Dodging the petals would help separation from the background. The petals go down to about L=10, while parts of the background are >20.

Burning the anthers will be tricky. Whites that bright often turn gray when burned. An option is to create a duplicate layer, attach a black mask, and set blending to multiply. Then with a white brush set to a low flow rate (but 100% opacity), paint over the anthers repeatedly. Rather than simply darkening, this increases (squares) the pixel values. It often will get you a modest amount of darkening without graying. It's also often a good way to bring out detail in areas that are nearly blown out, but in this case, I tried it, and it didn't bring out detail. It did, however, darken it without adding gray.

You can control the amount both by how many times you paint and by reducing the opacity after you are done.

[escape]

I like it a lot, Andre. It's beautiful, and I find its form interesting.

[Chataignier]

Nice !

[Round Tuit]

Thank you all. Your comments are truly appreciated. You wouldn't believe the dumb comments that I got from some other sites.

Dan, I will attend to both of your suggestions. For the stamen, I will probably go back to the raw file and create a copy with lower exposure and see If there is data there to recover. Otherwise, the multiply mode approach is likely the best method to build density.

[Chataignier]

I know there is a significant time difference between France and Canada, but three months ? Mine blooms around the end of December.

Perhaps you could hang a calendar near the plant ?

Cheers
David

[Round Tuit]

I know there is a significant time difference between France and Canada, but three months ? Mine blooms around the end of December.

Perhaps you could hang a calendar near the plant ?

Cheers
David

Sorry but my plants are non conformists. This is the first bloom for the red one, the coral one is still fast asleep and the fuchsia is thinking about coming out with one bloom and several buds. None has ever bloomed at Christmas. Easter and Halloween are closer to their schedule.

[Geoff F]

There is a Christmas flowering cactus and a very similar looking Easter flowering variety. Exact flowering times seem to be linked to watering times and dry resting periods. Putting plants outside for a month or two (in a shady location) appears to help with flowering. Indoors, keep them in a good light but shaded from direct sunlight.

But I cannot see that image because the link is getting blocked by my malware protection software.

[Round Tuit]

I didn't know about the Easter flowering variety. I"ll have to look into that.

Most malware protection software have a parameter to set up a black list to force the software to block a site and a white list to let it accept a site that it thinks might be malware. It could be useful for you to check if your software can do that.

[Round Tuit]

Here is a revised cactus. Darker background, brighter petals and better density in the stamen.

[LenR]

Andre, this genre is not my forte but I do like this revision.
Regarding the blooming times we have 4 of these which bloomed profusely in early December.
I notice one of the plants has however, in the last few days, produced a single bloom....

[Geoff F]

Referring to my house plant growing book. The main rule for both Christmas and Easter flowering plants is to avoid direct sunlight, because they are forest cacti not desert cacti.

Christmas flowering varieties. Leaf edges are noticeably spiky. Actual flowering time is between November and January. After flowering keep cool but in good indirect light and reduce watering although never let them become excessively dry. Spring to early summer, treat as normal house plants and water when required. From autumn, keep reasonably dry and cool until flower buds form then increase watering without becoming saturated. When flowering begins, treat as a normal house plant with a temperature around 55 degrees f.

Easter flowering cacti have smooth edged slightly scalloped oval leaves but the treatment is fairly similar to Christmas cacti. Keep cool and dryish for about three months after flowering then increase watering when flower buds appear in the spring.

[Radu Dinu]

The small editing details neither enhance nor diminish the beauty of the image.
So I like both.

[Round Tuit]

Thank you Radu for your comments and welcome to this forum.

I am glad that you like both versions and would agree with you that the differences between the two are subtil at the size displayed in this thread. However, the lack of detail in the stamen in particular is very noticeable when viewed full size. The effect of the increased contrast between the flower and the background is best viewed by displaying the image in the lightbox and flipping between the two versions.