A rose is a ...

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The upper right rose, on my monitor, has about the right cream color for the white areas.  The red is just a bit magenta, but neither orange nor purple.  These two clues, plus the hue clock, should keep you on course as you add more detail and zap to the image.

[mikemeister_admin]

I tried to follow Greg's advice and work out what I wanted out this image.
Apart from the obvious shadow/hilight setting and a bit of lab saturation - I didnt like the lower left rose intrusion in the picture - took the eye away from the lovely colours of the far one.
So I added a gradient soft light layer to try and tone it down a bit.
I also added 7 px of Local Contrast in bring out the detail in the petals.
Finally a touch of Midtone contrast

Basically I'm not happy with the result - the background is far too distracting for an attractive image

[mikemeister_admin]

I've just tried a 'new' idea posted on the Color Theory forum, which is quite interesting (if you are in the playing mood)
The post said...

"1) Start with either

A) a duplicate (either color or desaturated) of the image layer OR

B) a copy of a channel, OR

C) an idealized built channel, created by blending or other approaches. (More on this below.)

2) Set its blending mode to a strong overlay blending mode; I like the effect of Vivid Light, in particular; and especially if the layer for this work is desaturated or a copy of a single channel. The choice of blending mode can have an effect on final color (but not the way you might think). I may be useful to supply a copy of the original file above the entire stack, set to Color mode, which can be adjusted for opacity at the end.

3) Set up a Curves layer, set into a clipping group with the previous layer, in Normal blending mode, set to a default (no change) value. This will be useful in the layer stack for manipulation at a later point.

4) Set up a Solid Color adjustment layer, set into a clipping group with the previous layer, with the color set to a 50% gray (128,128,128). If you prefer, a standard layer filled with 50% gray would have the same effect.

5) Back off it's opacity slightly, perhaps to about 95%, to taste.

6) Adjust the opacities of Vivid Light layer to taste.

7) The Curves layer set up in step #3 can be used to adjust shadow points and make slight adjustments in other tonal ranges. You will find that large moves are very subtle. Even though it is set to a Normal blending mode, you will find that that operations on individual channels will not affect color balance. Unusual direction-changing curves can be useful here. Experiment. It will be useful to understand that a horizontal straight-line curve (128/0, 128/255) will essentially cause the Vivid Light layer to act as if it's been turned off as far as luminosity changes go; there will be a very slight saturation effect, keyed to the opacity level of the 50% gray layer above it.

The effects of this action are surprisingly subtle and controllable, which may be surprising if you have dismissed the use of Vivid Light or Linear Light blending modes as only useful for over-the-top hack effects.
"

This is what I got starting with a duplicate of the original image & no other adjustments, but the above,apart from going into CM to set the shadow/hilight points...

[mikemeister_admin]

I think Chris really nailed it with the second rendition.I just played with the colors and used USMto bring out the texture of the petal surface.

[imported_ganna]

Chris, I would need time to work thru your method. I tried to zap it a bit and get the detail out without overzapping. I started with hiraloam (radius 60 amount 20 in usm) to increase midtone contrast. Then did  high pass sharpening while changing blending mode on a second layer, merged layers and then in Lab in CM set highlights and shadows and apply a gentle S-curve and boosted colours by moving slider to 120. Lastly very gentle sharpening with smartsharpen.
Thats my Zim$1milj worth (about 2c US$)
Ganna

[mikemeister_admin]

GregM, one thing I like to do this these classes to to analyses and compare our different results.

If you compare our images, I think the reason my 2nd is quite effective is the contrast between the far rose and the background.  

If you inpsect them carefull, there is considerably less detail in the petals, of this 2nd image, than in either my 1st attempt or yours - not what Mike asked for!!

I think yours has a touch too much green, which makes for a cooler petal (see what I mean with the whitish one on the near rose), where as the Vivid Light approach has not cooler the colours much (Hue 13 moves to 15, yours moves to 46 and my first to 27).

I had wondered about trying to include a warm misty glow to the roses, because I think this is image should give us a sensation of how beautiful roses are, rather than a factual redendition - but I failed, so dropped it.

I would actually say that your image is closer to Mike's instructions "add more detail and zap to the image" than mine.

If the course keeps going at this rate, we are in for a fantastic time.

[mikemeister_admin]

Ganna, I never tried smartsharpen - quess that is CS3?  I very rarely use CS2, preferring PS7 as it seems much quicker on my old PC and does most things that I want.

I think you have got this one just right with the detail and contrast, I particularly like the way you have brought out the colour and texture of the green stalks, and marvelous detail in the petals - a very delicate feeling to the image.
 
Your sharpening halos are hardly visible (I popped the size back up to the original and that may have altered things a bit) - but I learnt an interesting tip about sharpening...

When you have done your sharpening, duplicate the layer and then switch blending modes - one to darken and tother to lighten.  You can then play with their opacities to get the effect you want.  Tother advantage is that slightly over-sharpening and reducing the individual opacities gives one a better chance of getting it right!

[mikemeister_admin]

Here's my effort.  I tried to get the creamy whites in the left rose, and tone down the hot background, without making the flowers too garish.



  -- Russ