This perhaps looks like a painting or a photo with a painting effect applied, but it's actually a combination of three photos I took yesterday, with no other special effects added. I'll describe how I made it in a later post; it's my hope for now that you'll simply be able to enjoy it.

The part shown above is just a small portion of the whole image, so that I could show some detail lost during the reduction required to fit a picture onto my blog. Even at that, it's from a version that was reduced to 25% of the original.

A reduced-size version of the whole thing is shown below, but you need to see a much larger version to really appreciate it: links to desktop-background sized versions are just below the image.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55/2.8 @ 48mm — ¹/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 (sort of) — full exif & map
Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200     Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600

The desktop backgrounds are in various sizes, in both standard and widescreen versions. Select one that's the same size, or larger, than your desktop size.

I've got this as my background now, and frankly, in its full-size glory I think it's the best I've ever made (which might not be saying much, but hey, “it's my party and I'll feel pride if I want to....”).

This replaces a different fall-foliage desktop I was using for the last week, which itself replaced a cherry-blossom desktop I made two months ago.

I'm really excited about this image. Let me know what you think....