Looking Up A Palm Trees, With or Without Wires

I went out into the backyard. 
I began taking pictures. 
Plants everywhere, Butterflies around my head.  Some may say Bats in My Belfry.

I was looking to take a picture for the background of the computer.  You know that pretty picture that you never see because your junk is all over the screen.

No, Eric, not THAT junk.   Your programs.

This is the original picture.  It has those pesky power wires because this was deep in the back of my yard next to the Utility Easement.

So why leave those wires in there?  I was installing software all over the place, taking pictures of things, and merging the two in the blog for the last week or so.  A couple days ago, I wrote about how to install GIMP and why you may want to do so.   The picture below is the result of my playing with GIMP on a late Friday Afternoon.

I erased the wires. 

Not just the wires, but in removing the wires, you had to go back and retouch some of the palm leaves.  If you look very closely and flip back and forth between the two pictures, you will notice my tweaks.  I removed, or trimmed some of the fronds on the palm.  I lightened some of the individual leaves on the fronds.  After all, the sun angle had cast a shadow on the leaves from the back.

Why bother?  I wanted to see if I could figure it all out, why not?  Someone who retouches the picture for a magazine, or a website will go through all of this.  I needed a little more practice using The GIMP to make sure that I could do it for some projects that are up and coming. 

You tell me, I think I did fairly well... not perfect.  You'll be able to spot some of the edits, especially if you had the full sized pictures.  You don't, these are around 1/4 size but they're fairly clear. 

Ok, it's obsessive... But I'm learning.  Enjoy.