Castor Bean Leaves (View Larger)

Every time I venture to the everglades, I always seem to take a few

Castor Bean plant photographs. You can find these all over the place

and they are very poisonous. This is the plant that Ricin comes from.

I find the shapes of the leaves very photogenic and this set caught my

eye. I used Gaussian Blur to separate the leaves from their background

and then applied the Pixel Bender filter to smooth out the leaves. I

am very happy with the result. I will add the original for your

comparison.

Please be sure to view the Pixel Bender rendition large so that you can see all the details.

Excellent effects, and the comparison is amazing. I know that RAW files to tend to look flat and dull before processing, but even so the transformation here is remarkable. The leaves are so vibrant and almost 3D when viewed large. Very well done Leo!

Best Regards

Alf