Experimenting with some grass .....

[Clicker]

But not in an illegal way  of course .....

[Fogey]

I would say  the experiment is working; this is an amazing image.

 

I have been trying to work out what you did to get such an effect apart from the wacky baccy.

[Clicker]

I’ll post the original and tell you how I did it  when I get  back on my pc later today Fogey … on my iPad at the mo … 

[Clicker]

Here is the original .... taken with my  Fuji 35 mm f /1.4 lens Lens was wide open   aperture priority  and  auto focus.  RAW version processed in PHOTOSHOP.> Duplicate  layer > Gaussian   blur  to make the  whole pic blurrier  than the original  background >  Use history  brush  at 4  or 5   opacity and softest  version  and a size about 3 times the width of the seed heads,  to slowly and gently expose the  grasses that  were in  focus in original  pic . 
GRADUALLY REDUCE THE  SIZE OF THE  BRUSH AND KEEP  EXPOSING SLOWLY  TILL  YOU ARE JUST  EXPOSING THE. SEED HEADS ... then I adjusted the  saturation to make it less  > merged the layers then   used  the lighten  tool to  simulate a  few  bokeh highlights  and   give a central lightened area . Finally I  used the   artistic  filter and a very slight  dry brush effect   before  a very very slight   texture resembling cartridge paper  using the texturising tool . 

Hope this helps Fogey ....yell if  you require any more info ... happy to oblige ... p

ps. in order to use the history brush you must not alter  the  size of the original image  whist processing it .... only change the size / crop when  you have finished  using the history  brush  and merged the  layers . 

[CMunzel]

Lovely processing, Clicker. And thank you for posting how you achieved it. 

[Fogey]

Thank you Clicker, for that valuable insight.  Reading that has opened up a plethora of possibilities that I hadn't considered.

 

[Clicker]

I’m always pleased to explain how I get certain effects on my photos to get the look that I want. It’s even more rewarding if I see that leads to someone else exploring ways that encourages their own creativity in any art form …I have the same outlook with my gardening and  cooking …  sometimes even trying to combine those two hobbies as I am currently trying to grow  a plant from a piece of ginger stem !  I’ll let you know if I have any success with that experiment