Crimson

A tulip is a flower in the genus Tulipa, comprising about 150 bulbous species, and in the family Liliaceae. Although tulips are associated with Holland, both the flower and its name originated in the Persian empire. The tulip, or lale (from Persian, lâleh) as it is also called in Turkey, is a flower indigenous to Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and other parts of Central Asia. Although, it is unclear who first brought the flower to northwest Europe, it is the Turks who made tulip known in Europe. The picture of tulips on the far right was taken in one of the flower beds that I had at the house in Greenland, NH before moving to Vegas. Using Paint Shop Pro I first created the photo at the bottom by cropping the image, changing the background to black and white and then blurring it to make the tulips stand out better. However, I felt that the contrast ended up being much too vivid. I finally settled on the creation above using pretty much the same effects, excepting that I kept the color of the original background.

Creation involved the following: Step 1: Cropped the picture; Step 2: Created a Duplicate Layer and then a New Layer MaskShow All; Step 3: Used Effects PhotoBlack & White Film to create the B&W Layer; Step 4: Then used the Erase Tool to bring out the color; Step 5: After flattening the layers I created a new Duplicate Layer and then selected AdjustBlurGaussian Blur5.0 to blur the image; Step 6: Used LayerNew Layer MaskShow All to create another layer and then used the Paint Brush to paint the detail back in.