Hi Diane, I love this spherical image of the hydrangea enclosed in a box. The sharpest blossom on the upper left stands out nicely against the blurry background and other slightly blurry petals. Beautiful curves in the circle and nice center star too. I didn’t realize you could get this effect with an action. I have been using ICM to create circles of flowers and I found the image needs a good center. This image is special to have one more prominant flower balanced with pieces of curving petals.
Hydrangea’s are tough no matter what the variety, Diane. This is very nice lemonade. It really pulls my eye into the image. I could see playing with other colors for the background as this doesn’t do much for me, but I’m not sure where it should go.
Thanks, @annlouiselyman and @Dennis_Plank! The orbital action is a crazy mix of polar coordinates moves – I can’t imagine how someone came up with it – but it’s fun! Dennnis, the BG color results from the action and I can never predict what it will be, but it could be modified after the fact.
I’ve played with the polar coordinates and spherize filters and they do make for some crazy images. I shouldn’t be surprised that someone has come up with specific actions using them.
What a fun image Diane! It brings back memories when I was a kid playing with marbles. Not sure if marbles are still a thing with young kids but I’d buy a set if they were themed like this. The image has beautiful curves and the petals are perfectly positioned. Nice work!
Thanks, @Dennis_Plank and @Alfredo_Mora! I’m trying to find the directions for this online – will post when I can find them. I stole it from somewhere, years ago, but no idea where.
Very cool, Diane. It could run and run - a whole series of flower heads with a variety of backgrounds. I used to have a program that did something like this but it was more destructive. This is fascinating, a bit like looking through a glass ball.
Aesthetically, I like the contrasting colors, the smooth and continuous contours, the sharp focus. Those are very pleasing.
My critique is that the very light colored flower veining in the upper left corner is a bit bright, and I wonder if the background brown could be cooled a bit to compliment the pastel pink of the flowers.
Thanks, @Matt_Lancaster – it took me a while to get back to this, but I enjoyed making your suggested tweaks. I do like the toned-down highlights. I played a lot with the BG color (which the action creates with no user input), using a mask for a Selective Color adjustment layer. I tweaked it to a cooler softer gold but could go further. I couldn’t decide where to stop. I do think it makes the flower stand out better. What do you think?
And @Alfredo_Mora, I don’t think I got back here to thank you for the EP! I’m delighted to have it chosen! It’s a fun idea to play with, and sometimes it actually works well.
Thanks, @Dennis_Plank! I could play with the border color for hours and never decide. I’d love to know how the program picks it out. It changes if you select a slightly different area for the square crop that will be used.
