Love it! Fantastic.

glad to hear you've all recovered ;)

Interesting shot, I would love to see what the original looks/looked like

I think the shadows are really striking and sharp

David, how about a new camera now? 30D or 5D perhaps.

JD: ok, here's the original (the tone-mapped file generated by Photomatix):

.../archives/flower_power.php

drunky: why?

Great shot even though it has been massively processed (who cares).
The colours and striking shadows on it are almost CGI in compostition...

I really like the treatment you have applied to this shot. I would love to see the original photo to see how different it looks.

F**k me Dave!! (In a non-literal sense), after seeing the original I have to say that this really is proof of your utter skill in the digital darkroom. Astounding work.

Yep, so good I had to post twice (while not arguing with anyone ;-)...)

Doh! I didn't see your comment above. The transformation is truly amazing, the original wasn't much to look at. I really like the final result.

I've never posted before but I have lurked for a while. I have to say I really like this image. Very striking color and texture. Wonderfull!

Interesting shot. I really like the original to compare against - its interesting to see how far you manage to manipulate the original photograph. It would be great to see more of the originals.

Yup, you gotta love Photomatix...however don't you find that sometimes (and who knows why!?) that it produces very noisy images? Nice PP work here again.

I think this image is testament to just how many opportunities are available with considered use of photoshop.

To me the original image is bland (which actually I like), but knowing Dave, I suspect that he pre visualised the possibilities that were available in PP at a later date.

The image is very graphic and striking and is typical (I don't mean in a bad way) of chromasia.

Again, the photo will probably promote discussion as to the validity of photography as a representational activity. By now though, most visitors here will believe that anything goes nowadays and photography now means all things to all people.

Good work.

Paul W.: what drew me to the original was that it was broad daylight and the contrast between the shadows, and the neon illumination within those shadows, seemed really interesting. In the end I've pretty much processed the details out of the shadows, but it turned out ok.

RichS: I don't tend to put up the originals all that often, but I'll try and put a few more up in future.

Paul: I've found that photomatix images are especially noisy in areas of the original that contain a lot of smooth tones (e.g. the sky). Images such as this one don't seem too bad.

John: yep, I did hope that this would be a fairly dramatic image.

the colors are absoutley gorgeous! another winning shot.

Wow. Now it's easy to use the saying "Like night and day". You'd swear the second and final pic was taken at night, so it's quite interesting to see the original. I've found myself flipping back and forth between the two to figure out what you've done here and you are certainly very talented at PS, so I enjoy learning from you. Yes the word "Flower" has certainly taken front seat in the post processing. Really neat!

I really enjoy comparing your original images to the final versions. Personally, I think that you should give a link to the original for every picture that you post.

Not too sure about how this turned out but that's just a personal preference.

Concerning the green did you apply a solid colour layer or adjusted the green channel (with the blue and red as well) in the curves?

Great shot, as I'm a sucker for neon signage. Absolutely amazing difference between the original and this version. I would have passed over this shot if I had been there, thinking that I would have to come back at night in order to get anything interesting out of it. Thanks for hipping me to HDR as well. I've just started experimenting with it, but I was curious as to how you created the image from a single RAW file. Doesn't Photomatix need both under and over exposed versions to genereate the dynamic range?

Jarama: for this shot I produced three 16-bit TIFFs from the RAW file: one normal exposure and two further images 1.5 stops either side of the first one.

I love when you link to the original for comparison. Can't believe the difference here!

Excellent. I'd never have seen this from the original. Most impressed.

Definitely this one over the original which is quite bland if you ask me. By the by, I downloaded the Photomatix software (the free version) after hearing about it on your blog. I've enjoyed tooling around with some of my images but I can't seem to view them outside of the actual software itself, such as saving the file as a TIFF and then using Win Pic Viewer to view them. Does that fact change if you pay for the licensed version or am I doing something wrong when I save the file?

The best thing about this shot is that you showed us the original. Thanks. The original I could take, but I just would never see what you ended up with. I don't love the shot personally, but appreciate the lesson ;-)

Don't you still owe us a Finley?

Incredibly striking image which immediately reminded me of the futuristic movie 5th Element, infact the more I look at it, the dirty yellow backdrop gives it more of the dark, grimey feel of Bladerunner. I agree with the comments about it looking like a cgi rendered image. John makes a good point about what can, or should be interpreted as photography, however whether this image should be labelled 'digital art' or 'digital photo' doesn't matter to me.....it is after all just a label. What really counts is that this is a really dramatic shot that required the artist / photographer to have a vision. It certainly creates impact in my mind and stimulates my imagination and I believe that is what photography should do in part.
I've just realised that by the time I write my post from here on the other of the Atlantic it is already the middle of the night in Blightey......h'mm I wonder if anybody will notice my comment.

brilliant composition, contrast - thanks for another great shot!!

Whether you like this photo or not, it certainly speaks to the power of processing, and re-asserts the fact that taking a picture is only half the battle. In my opinion, post processing is just as important as the original "taking" of the photograph. A fantastic image which is poorly processed can quickly become a very mediocre photo. Photographers like David who are able to both take good photos straight off the camera AND process them at a high degree of skill will always be a step ahead of the crowd.

Love the results. Great processing. Thanks for letting us see the original.

Who cares about massive postprocessing, as long as you get the results you want. This is a really cool graphic shot with eye-popping colour.

Like someone wrote before: me too, I was sure that the image was taken at night. Power of Photoshop is unpredictable :-) I like the final result very much. But it proofs very clearly that with pictures we are seeing in magazines, online, whereever nowadays, we can never be sure that we are actually looking at what the photographer was actually capturing. I, personally, don't care so much. If the image captivates my eye I am happy. But somehow I realize more and more, every single day, that I respect people who can draw my attention with their non post processed images. It is probably much more difficult.

All of that being said, I like your today's image very much.

Brilliant! I think that you have created a very painterly and 'pop' style image. who cares if you heavily post-process? all artists work and labour their images to achieve what they want, employing whatever necessary along the way. bugger the purists, if an image is worth crafting then what the heck.

out of interest, what are the benefits of using C1pro for your RAW images rather than Photoshop's RAW converter?

very nice colors

Wow, against the black theme this image is amazing, the colours are just so striking i love it :-)

Another shot with a interesting HDR treatment, thank you for showing the before shot. I like the contrast between the red letters and the green background.

Well, I suppose you like them because they may look alot better than they originally did? I find the amount I process an image depends upon how good I feel it is. The less pleased, the more CS work.

Great shot DJN.. How were you able to apply the uneven dark gradient at the bottom of the image?

I really enjoy it when you put up an original image too. I've learned a lot from you in regards to PS. However, posting the original not only gives my insight in post-processing, but also the vision you have when looking for posts. I'm starting to achieve this and am amazed by how differently I veiw the world form just a year ago. Anyway, thanks again for posting the original and I hope you post more of them in the future.

This is my blog pick of the day! Great colors.

Thanks everyone :-)

Joe: I'm not entirely sure I understand the problem you're having with Photomatix. Email me if you need any more help with it.

Ed: yep, I noticed :-)

mooch: yep, that's one way of looking at it, but on occassion I do take shots with the postprocessing in mind; i.e. I know that it won't work as a straight shot, but that it will after it's been worked on in photoshop.

I like the final result a lot; you really have moved the original picture on in the processing. Nice one.

It's great to have the opportunity to view the original, because I believe it gives us some small insight into the tremendous work you do during the post procesing process.
Great shot.

Gorgeous power of flower!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tendancefloue/