Mandala of the Helios Flower

[Detail Man]

A year after photographing the "Sun King", I got this more detailed capture of the "eye" of it's (slightly smaller, but no less robust) offspring. The same DMC-LZ5, one Summer later (2007).

Have managed (using a slightly sloping tone-curve in conjunction with Gamma = 1.50) to better tame the very bright back-lighting, and bring the detail and color of the inner "mandala" out using DxO Optics Pro 6 -operating on an 8-bit TIF input image-file made from the original in-camera JPG (to get around a particular irritating bug in DOP 6.12). If it seems a little on the bright side, it could be reduced in Brightness by a few percent in an editor, and the midtones and shadows inside the "mandala" will remain sufficiently emphasized relative to the outer back-lit petals (I find).

The flower has had hundreds of millions of years to excel in being appealing to other creatures. I have but a few heart-beats in which to witness timeless grandeur arising out of the Earth ...

 

[lensman]

DM,

Great detail & colour.

I think that this close-up image shows the detail a little better than the previous photo, though both are good images.

David

 

[ricohnick]

absolutely brilliant image! definetly 100%

 

[rui fernandes]

Detail Man, like I told you before, I find the inner geometrie of this beauty something very appealing. So I had to try some "extreme graphical" work with the files you've kindly send me, thanks!

Here they are. In the first one I wanted to get a strong bright Sun feeling, so I had to remove the petals and add a dark backgkround, together with some fidling with curves, saturation and contrast...


On the second one I wanted to get a strong medieval engraving feeling. Not sure if I've got a decent result according to that, but I like to see the interior geometrie "alone". Here I worked with perspective correction to decenter the structure, heavy saturation and contrast, BW convertion, black background and vignetting...


Hope you like it, and thanks for the fun ;-)

 

[Detail Man]

Very nice processing work, Rui ! ...

I really like the color one, and the B&W is interesting, too.

 

[Orol]

Rui, for me the BW spherical pattern works superb.

Peter

 

[lensman]

Rui,

The colour shot is the one for me, very different

David

 

[rui fernandes]

Thanks guys, and thanks Detail Man for letting me play with he's photo. It's always a pleasure to play and learn a little bit more ;-)