Iris

[mdmc]

It's not real sharp, besides that what do you think of the general Idea & P S techniqe?
I have included the original and Ps version.
Mark.

[drg]

Personally, I would stay closer to the original framing, perhaps crop a very small amount of the negative space at the top of the photo. The color in the second one is almost unnatural, even harsh. It appears to be that either range is off (levels shifted one way or the other beyond the actual information in the photo) or that the brightness is to high for one color component or another.

Did you try any Auto adjustments first to just see what would happen? I could play with it later today or this evening if you'd be interested. The first picture appears to have quite a bit of possibility even in this size/quality. The colors are evenly mute so could be readily rebalanced/intesified I believe. I shoot of flowers from time to time so have spent a lot of time color matching them for catalogs and clients. This looks like a good example of this variety or Iris.

[mdmc]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, drg.
I selected the flower, inversed and droppped the bg to black. after that adjusted levels and colors man on the flower.
Here's a quick edit doing the same, only using auto levels on the flower.
Its an improvement already!
Feel free to play with my images, if you care to take the time.
It is a very quick edit, so keep that in mind.
Thanks again,
Mark.

[gahspidy]

Mark, the original image would benefit from just a levels adjustment and as drg said auto levels works very well on it. Your idea of having the flowers against a basically black bg could be can be effective but I would try not to have the subject too bright as having a black bg will in itself allow the flowers to pop out of the picture. I don't care for the square crops you did with the edits, as I prefer not having the subjects too centered.

[drg]

The square cropping might work better with a different view of the flower and background but I feel that part of the gracefullness of the photograph is lost by changing the proportion and with darkening the background that much. You are getting some decent bokeh so try to exploit it.

Here's my quick take on editing this image. Since you had started with PS/E 2 (still a fine program) I thought I'd use that. Had to find the right notebook with it loaded!

This image has had:

PS/E 2

Auto Contrast
Auto Color
Proportionally (2:3) cropped
Shifted Midtones (Levels slightly darker to overcome Auto adjustments)
Sharpened Edges

That's it, here it is:

[mdmc]

drg, I like your edit, and especialy thanks for digging out the old laptop with e 2 installed.
Gary, thanks for pointig out about the black bg.
You've both helped me a great deal figure out what I wanted from this pic.
any comments about my current edit(not final but close) would be greatly appreciated.
Mark.
BTW drg, I was going for a black bg but will use it the way you have shown also.
Thanks again.