Bee Balm

[crystalb]

Loooooove it

[jumpinjimmyjava]

WOW, I really like this work casil. Such detail and with a 3d feel. I wouldn't change a thing - jimmy

[casil403]

Thanks all, Bambi I'll give you mine if you give me yours..... We can just do it separate form the swap if you like!

[Bambi]

thanks all, bambi i'll give you mine if you give me yours..... We can just do it separate form the swap if you like!

deal!

[casil403]

YaY!!!

[JAS_Photo]

Very cool!

[Fortytwo]

Thanks all....
42, I'm not quite sure how i would do the smoothing of the background but if you want to have a go at it by all means. Please post the results too if you could and let me know how you did it.
Thanks for the suggestion too. I sort of like the background because IMO it gives it still a bit of a wildflower look to it. I took it in a field near some traintracks and so the BG gives it a bit of a rustic feel to it.

I've had a quick go at it. Basically, I thought I'd blur the background in two layers. One for the outside of the frame and a smaller circle near the flower. In the outer I used a gaussian blur of 7 pixels and the inner one 3.5 pixel. I used a layer mask to select the area's where I wanted the blur to go. I've done it a little quick and dirty, but it should give you an idea of what could be possible spending a couple of hours on it:


This is how it all looked in Photoshop before I've flattened it.
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/1738/screenshotbe.jpg
(big assed file!)

Hope this all makes sense to you. And hope you like what I've done. If not, it's your picture, you should be happy with it, not me. Beside's, the original picture is really nice, I enjoyed working on it a little. But a nice bokeh is sometimes really hard to get.

[casil403]

Wow 42 that's really nice....I quite like what you did with it...thanks for the tips!
It makes the flower pop even more!!!!