Lately, I was feeling antsy to tried out a creative image. My first thought was that I did not want to do a flower composite but as you can see I did. I bought an art review magazine and liked some acrylics and watercolors. Some of the images were very loose and gestural which I liked. So, I sat down with my laptop and started experimenting…

I scanned through my photos and picked out a beach shot taken on my birthday as a starting point.

Next, I started combining various images with the beach image. I finally settled on a combination with a macro shot of a chrysanthemum. I used a hard light blending mode and reduced the opacity of the flower layer. I liked the combination but thought the flower was a little weak.

So, I decided to try to combine the flower with something that would give me more depth. I found a shot of staghorn fern and turned it on its side.

Took the chrysanthemum and combined it with the fern. Whenever I try combinations, I always scroll through blending modes to see what pops. For this case, I liked Pin Light the best. This combination took my plans in a different path because I liked the loose look (like the art in the magazine).

Next, I decided to make the loose effect stronger. I took the combined fern and flower layer and applied the Ocean Ripple and Diffuse Glow Photoshop filters. Now, I felt I had a good base image.

At this point, the beach scene is forgotten, and I started looking for something that worked with the base image. I needed something with two strong focal points that could work on either side of the central fern. I thought of a macro shot from my front yard of two rose blossoms. These are from a mini-rose bush and were not actually pink. I had already tweaked the colors to a light pink previously.

The roses are added to the mix with a soft mask to blend the roses into the base image.

Thought the rose combo was too pink and lost the ferns. So, I added back the original fern image back with more soft masking.

For the final touches, adjusted the greens to be stronger and less yellow. I also applied the eye movement technique that I learned in a photo workshop.