Salvage of Waterlillies Photo

[poinsiana]

I liked the way the sun created glistening silver spots on the water in this shot, however the composition was not good and I didn't like the blown out white smudge in the top left, or the leaf between the two waterlillies.

Before:


I felt it was worth salvaging, so I made the following adjustments in Photoshop:

• Using the pen tool, I created a selection of the two waterlillies and pasted both to new layers.
• Using the Transform tool, I resized and slightly rotated the copy of the tallest waterlilly.
• I then moved them both into position beside the tall waterlilly on the right.
• I cropped the image, trying to get a reasonable composition, but cut out the white blur in the top left.
• Finally I sharpened the image a little using the high pass filter.

Here's the result:

After:


I would be happy to hear how others would have salvaged this image.
How is the composition?
Did I keep enough of the glistening sun spots when I cropped?
Is the small bit of green leaf on the left still distracting?
Any other suggestions or ideas?

Camera: Sony DSLR-A300
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/320)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 200 mm
ISO Speed: 250
Exposure Bias: 0/10 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire

[abarickman]

Very nicely done. I would not have been able to guess that you had moved parts of the image if you had not described it. I like the final image and agree that the sun on the water in the background makes the photo.