I didn't have a 'vision' going into this one, so I more or less experimented with different effects and until I found some that I liked.
What I did:
1. I cropped quite a bit. I didn't like the distracting branches in the background, plus I sort of didn't want to keep the bee because I'm not a fan of them.
2. I brightened the shot a lot (curves).
3. I duplicated the layer, did a gaussian blur followed by a color mode blend.
4. I flattened the 2 layers and desaturated.
5. I then cloned/painted out the leaf--quite tricky! I did the best I could.
6. Next I cloned/painted out all the background.
7. I played a bit more with contrast/brightness.
8. Finally I decided to add the borders to complement the B&W within the photo.
I'm mostly pleased with the results. And it was a learning experience so that's all that matters.
