Two Soft Pink Peonies (Edited and Posterized)

This image began with a photo that I took yesterday at Long Hill Gardens, here in Beverly, MA. My cousin and I returned there for a second visit, this time late morning. She took lots of photos of peonies for her project, and I took a few myself. We were almost finished when we spotted these dusty rose peonies. I loved the color, but the flowers were leaning toward the ground so the angle was difficult, and besides that, they had to be photographed through a balustrade. Although I managed to get a good view of the blossoms, my photo also captured part of the wall in the background, including some pipe, rusted white wire, and other assorted complications and distractions. Tonight I opened the image in Painter and tried to solve some of the problems. First, I added some pixels to the top of the image so I could make the angle less extreme. Then I used digital pastel to draw over the distractions. Then I posterize the image to make the background blend together. This also posterized the blossoms, and I was really happy with the way they looked. I moved the image back into iPhoto to straighten and crop the image, and to do some final cleanup, and here it is.