Cactus

Cornflake

One of the last cactus flowers of this season.

Stumblebum

So so beautiful.....Oh if there was a way to suppress or make the distracting busy bg disappear....maybe just go super dark....probably lot of work....I don't know how to do it.

Juano

Incredible geometry! Very nice.

Cornflake

Taz, Cristobal, thanks! Taz, I hear you. I processed this one five times. Almost all my attention was on the background. In one version I suppressed all details.

The result didn't look believable to me. I settled on reducing most of the detail so that the background was barely there. Obviously, it's debatable.

black mamba

Very nice, Don. I prefer the " doctored " version even though it lost a little sharpness in the process.

Cornflake

Thanks. The second one (which was chronologically first) is less sharp because I wasn't as careful with my selections. I thought it would be simple to select the flower in this one. It wasn't. On the fifth try I got pretty good at it.

Stumblebum

Love the second one! First one too....
Cheers!~

Juano

I favor the dark background too. Nice work.

Cornflake

Maybe I made the wrong call on what to do with the background. Thanks for the input.

Eia

Beautiful! I like the original. The second one seems to have lost detail in some of the petals but maybe it's just that my eyes can't adjust fast enough from the soft background to the flower. Maybe just a bit of blur given to the bg in the first but as is I like it. It also gives it a floating feel to the bloom.

Cornflake

Thanks, AnnaMaria.