My Scottish “Secret Garden”

This was a pretty ugly image to start with – very light green and hardly any contrast – it was a good challenge to get something I liked from it! It was taken in some little town in Scotland that was on the way to the highlands. I actually used Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Infocus to sharpen it up a little and it did a pretty good job. This plug-in seems to be a lot like the Sharpen Shake Reduction filter in Photoshop CC. Did some clean up. Created a stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) and applied Nik Viveza 2 to the image Helped me direct the attention to the center flowers. Next Topaz ReStyle was applied  TRS-Tangerine Gauze preset. (Settings were: no changes to ReStyle section; Basic Temperature 0.13, Tint -0.14, and Saturation 0.06; Tone Black Level -0.59, Midtones -0.12, and White Level 0.34; and Detail Structure -1.00. Masks paintd back the center flowers using Color Aware brush and sampling the green leaves in middle – paint with 1.00 strength and Hardness 0.62 just the center flowers, little pink flowers, and purple thistles.) On a new stamped layer Nik Color Efex Pro plug-in was opened and several filters were stacked. (The filters were: Detail Extractor with Detail set to 69%, Contrast 68% and Saturation 26% and a control point was set on just the center yellow plant; Darken/Lighten Center using Shape 1, Center Lum 39%, Border Lum -57%, and Center Size 44%; Midnight Color Set Neutral, Blur 35%, Contrast 36%, Brightness 65% and Color 77% and overall Opacity 81%; Film Efex Vintage using Film Type 16 and overall Opacity set to 31%; and Vignette Filter Shape 1, Adapt Edges 19%, Transition 38%, Size 27%, and Opacity 43% and the overall Opacity 67%.) On a New Layer did a little edge clean up using my Chalk 60 brush, a Curves Adjustment Layer to add some contrast back into the image, and the Sharpen Tool on the middle plant thistles to emphasize them a little more. This seemed to take a long time. Wanted to show you that with the Color Efex Pro filters, there is usually an overall Opacity slider after the control points section that can really help adjust the filter look the way you want it. Anyway, it was a little “Secret Garden” that I saw!…..Digital Lady Syd