I was hoping to find some of this out at the old prison, because I remembered it being really pretty in previous years. Found this little cluster in a patch of light and fell in love :-) Have some other shots from where I found some growing on a chain link fence that I like, but this is easily my favorite shot. Not a big landscape view, but then things aren't at their peak yet here, and really ... I think I'm just a macro kind of a person. Not that I don't appreciate a lovely view, but it's little surprises like this that really delight me.
And I love how the bokeh came out in the background. Bonus!
It was actually backlit, though it doesn't really look that way in the shot.
Decided at the last minute to download qtpfsgui and give tonemapping a try. It got some nice detail out of the shadowy areas; just hope I didn't overdo it!
PP - qtpfsgui (default HDR conversion, tonemap: pregamma 0.667, mantiuk method, contrast mapping 2.858, saturation factor 1.379, detail factor 1.8), opened original JPG in PI, opened tonemapped JPG as a 2nd layer (lightened and white balance on both, reduced noise on tonemapped version, merged in Multiply mode at 10% transparency), cropped, shifted green/yellow hues greener, resized, sharpened, added border, cloned out one little brightish spot near the border.
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curious as to your choice not to clone out (or otherwise diminish) the gray stripe coming down from leaf's right. you put lots of post capture work into this (thanks for sharing) but seemed to choose not to touch that.
Lovely detail and color in the leaves. I like the emerald green background and dof that makes the leaves stand out very effectively. Nice lighting too.
Very nice rich red colours and good composition. I like the simplicity of this shot and the way the foreground subject is lit against the darker background to emphasise it.