Flowers

An easy one, using only Lightroom. I often try to get images with the sun in the frame.  Maybe, it's a result of liking the new star trek movies that have a bit too much lens flare in them.  Something about the sun shining down on things that makes an image just better. Anyhow, here is a very bland looking shot obtained straight from camera. 

 

Several issues with the image. Seems a bit dark and dull, the pole with the street sign is distracting and the wires just look ugly. So immediate thought is to try and focus in on only the flowers and the sun and to crop out the pole and sign.  Had to fix the levels and colour a bit to bring out the colour in  sky.  Masked the flowers and really tried to increase the redness and brightness in the flowers and then used the spot removal tool to try remove the wires.  Annoying to do with Lightroom 4, but apparently easier to do in Lightroom 5 since they added a brush tool to paint in fixes. The final result.

Though happy with the result, I still see some issues.  The two wire at the top right hand corner could have been removed, but at the time I did it, I thought it would look a little more legitimate if it was imperfect. Also in playing with the levels, I brought out some detail in the house which just looks incorrect.  At that angle, the house should be completely dark.  The white trim in the roof triangle is okay, but the white window frame below and the area surrounding it is distracting.