Scanning a Bloom for a Different Look

This is a blossom from my new Ballerina Blue Fuchsia plant. I got an idea from reading The Photoshop Darkroom by Harold Davis and Phyllis Davis to scan my flower into the computer using a black box. I actually used a black sunglasses case to cover the plant while I scanned it with my Epson Perfection 3200. I used VueScan Scanner Software (my scanner is so old that Epson would not support it in Windows 7, but this relatively inexpensive software will) set to 3200 dpi, print quality, output tiff as a camera raw file, opens in Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop CS5. The black background needed a little cloning clean up first, then the flower had a few bad spots on the leaves to clean up, Nik Viveza 2 was used to even out the purple color evenly, and finally the Sharpen Tool was used on a few of the flower veins. That was it. I was surprised how easy and different the flower looks scanned in. If you have a scanner, give it a try for a change…..Digital Lady Syd