Sunlight on the Crocus (Posterized Photo]

Sunlight on the Crocus (Posterized Photo) Originally uploaded by randubnick

I took this photo back on March 21, during a walk at Long Hill Gardens. It was warm enough to walk and I was happy to see some crocus in bloom, so I took some pictures with my new phonecam. Tonight I finally tranferred the photos into my computer and edited them. The sunlight was very strong in the original photo, so I adjusted the contrast. I also used some gentle color overlays in Painter IX to reduce the amount of white highlight on the blossoms. I also used color overlay and some digital pastel on the leaves, making the flowers stand out more against the background. Then I posterized the image, and here it is. The crocus is such a hopeful flower, appearing among old leaves or even snow. But like hope itself, the crocus is sometimes hard to see. I thought it was worth the trouble to make the crocus a bit more visible.