Just Catching a Few Rays

I loved this beautiful red Sunflower taken at the Harry P. Leu Gardens in Orlando, Florida. The color is so striking. I put the flower in a warm background since it was so busy – used a soft mixer brush by David Belliveau (his brushes are really good) to smooth out any unusual lines or blobs. Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Sharpen AI set to Stabilize and both sliders to 50 to get a super sharp image. Nik Viveza 2 was used to sharpen the little buds individually and the center of the main flower. Text was one of my favorites fonts called Style Casual. An Inner Glow and Outer Glow layer style was added to the type. A Spotlight Effect using a white color to emphasize the center of the flower to draw the eye a little more. A slight vignette was created using Unmesh Dinda’s Levels Adjustment Layer technique. The last step was to create a Stamped Layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) on top and a Gaussian Blur set to a Radius of 4.3. Then in a layer mask, the Gradient Tool set black to white and a Linear Gradient was used on just the bottom so only the very bottom buds were blurred out a little. The main stems were painted back at 50% brush opacity. That was it. I love the yellow and red color palette. ….. Digital Lady Syd