Wintry Dahlia

Loved how this beautiful white dahlia bloom came out – and once again it used two of my favorite Photoshop plug-ins. First applied Trey Radcliff’s Yesterepoch preset to flower in Lightroom. In Photoshop sharpened up the image using Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Detail 3 using these settings: Detail Panel: Highlight – Small Details 0.42, Small Details Boost 0.45, Medium Details 0.54, Medium Details Boost 0.40, Large Details 0.48, and Large Details Boost 0.44. Back in Photoshop filled a layer mask with black and painted back just the edges of the flower that I wanted emphasized – this kept the petals in back less in focus. Added one of my textures that I made in Corel Painter with a layer mask so the flower did not have texture applied, and set the layer to 32% layer opacity. Next opened Nik’s Analog Efex Pro plug-in and used a preset I created called Very Basic Set up. It contains just the Basic Adjustments panel (Detail Extraction 30%, Brightness 35%, Contrast 25% and Saturation -30%), Bokeh filter (Blur Strength 24%, Boost Highlights 94%, and centered on middle of flower), and Lens Vignette filter (Amount -33%, slider set under R in Rectangle, Size 77%, and also centered on flower middle). Back in Photoshop added a Levels Adjustment Layer to give just a little more contrast. I really liked the soft textured feel to the flower…..Digital Lady Syd