All suggestions are welcome, but I was wondering if the post processing looks natural?
The composition look okay? I dimmed the background highlights some. Do you think it needs more?
I shot this with Canon 7D Mark II, Canon 100-400 mm L lens at 350 mm, at f8, 1/350, ISO 3200, handheld.
I took this shot at the Botanical Gardens last spring.
Very nice, Shirley. I like the way the stem blends in with the bright green background on the bottom, but I’d be tempted to clone or paint over the bright green at the top to mellow it out as it pulls my eye out that corner. Processing on the tulip looks excellent.
Thanks, Dennis. I will work on the brightness in the top left some more. I was afraid it was starting to look like I had tried to dial it down some.
Shirley: My thoughts pretty much echo what Dennis said regarding the ULC. I especially like the light on the bloom. Very nicely done. 
>=))>
Thank you, Bill. I hope to spend some time today editing the bright spot in the ULC. I plan to post the results.
Nice three dimensional feel to the tulip. Great lighting too. Nice all around for my taste. No nits here.
Thank you, Patricia.
Shirley: This is better. I think the contrast between the URC and ULC is problematic no matter what you do. The relative brightness of the ULC is still an eye grabber for me. I played around with it some in PS but could not really come up with anything I liked. You might consider adding a vignette and take down all the corners a bit.
Hi Shirley. I agree with Bill on this one. I downloaded this and played with it in Photoshop. and this is what I came up with. I first selected the tulip and put it on a foreground layer, then I went to the background layer and used the color picker to grab one of the darker tones from the upper right, then used a 13% opacity brush to go over both the upper right and upper left several times until I got it tamed down to what I was thinking about when I made the first comment. This is a technique I’ve been using for backgrounds lately in conjunction with cloning and sometimes it works very nicely (other times it’s a nightmare).
Thank you, Dennis, that looks wonderful! I will see what I can do. I don’t mess with PS so much anymore. I like what you accomplished though!
Hi Shirley,
I like Dennis’s treatment of the BG. The flower details are very nice. What I do when photographing flowers is study the the backgrounds and pick the best place for shooting. But this flower looks so good from where you took the photo that it left you with a tough bit of photoshop work for getting the most pleasing BG…Jim
Dennis, I am just not good with PS, and only have CS4 version, which probably limits me on some of the editing capabilities, so I remembered a neat program that I have, NIK Collection. So, I tried my hand with it, and want to see what you all think. Not as good as what you accomplished, but still not bad, I don’t think. Got rid of some of the bright distractions in the ULC anyway. I really like yours best, but can live with this I think. I will keep this in mind, and try my hand at your editing in PS when time allows it.
Shirley: I think you did really well and this solves the issue for me. I got focused on the ULC and didn’t consider essentially duplicating the URC 
. A beautiful image made even better. >=))>
Very nice work, Shirley. This looks as good or better than my version to me. The main thing was taming that corner, regardless of the software used. CS4 will work fine for almost anything I do in Photoshop except content aware fill, and I didn’t use that here.
Thank you Bill and Dennis. Your help and advice was very much appreciated.
Good DOF on the bloom, fading slightly to a slight blur on the back of the bloom. I would be tempted to try and lower the overall luminance of the bright green BG. Failing that, lower it on the ULC. In the largest magnification there is a good bit of natural dust/pollen. If you take some canned air with you the next time, it’s a quick fix for dust. The image is appropriately tack sharp where it counts. The diagonal texture is a great feature on a tulip to emphasize.
Thank you, Phil. I never thought about canned air to take with me when shooting flowers. Great tip that I will have to remember next spring.
I very much like Dennis’ take and technique. Where possible, I do the same. I agree that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but quite often it opens up possibilities that are not doable as a single layer. Dennis did exactly what I was thinking of doing this afternoon, but he got in ahead of me. In my mind, his version is a major improvement!
Shirley,
A most lovely tulip image. I do agree with the others about addressing that brighter corner, but in general, you did a great job with the bg,
A big thanks to @Dennis_Plank plank for your tip on addressing the specific concern with this image. So much value here on NPN! I was motivated to try this myself and while I’m sure I didn’t do the exact same process (for eg., not sure why you had to select the flower first? I just opened a new, empty layer and then followed the rest by painting in a picked color from the bg layer at a low opacity.) But thank you for adding a new technique to the tool box!!
Here’s my attempt. And to be sure, there is no right or wrong way to do things and the results are personal and subjective. In addition to applying Dennis’ technique for the brighter corner, I also made some other adjustments. I originally thought the bottom and stem were a bit bright as well. So I started by selecting just the stem and made a simply levels layer adj. But then I also painted around with soft brush on a burn layer to further reduce the brightness. After looking at this for a while, thought there might be a slight yellow cast to this (not just because the bg is yellow/green, but just maybe a tad warm in general. I added a Selective color adj layer and reduced the yellow (more blue) and upped the cyan by a few points. Small and subtle change there. Lastly, something I often do now thanks to @Preston_Birdwell’s tip. after the resizing and before saving, I added a Levels layer. Did not make any adjustments, but changed the blend mode to “Soft Light” and dropped the opacity way down to like 12%. This has the effect of boosting contrast and darkening.
Again, no rights or wrongs. The good news is… you have a great image worthy of exploring and making it the best it can be.
