Here's hoping I have kinda figured this thing out.

 This turned out to be more adventuresome than I intended.  The magic wand and refined edge was great on the outer portion of the hanging basket and in the interior were a nightmare.  

 My favorite Color Effect Pro for flowers - detailed extractor and brighten/darken center

This was my first playing with the magic wand and refine edge and this background was much, much easier to than the clouds and blue sky above.

Barn Studio Images

Here are a few of my images from our "studio still life" exercise.




straight out of the camera with white balance correction

big change here was adding the wooden table look

a little topaz simplify here

One of my favorite Nik filters