Dead Leaves- Blah to Beautiful

I spent a lot of time trying to decide how to begin this blog. Which picture should I use? How much should I share? Would anyone care? I finally decided to just jump in and share what I am working on and tell a little about what I did to create the finished project.
This photo was taken earlier this week while I was out walking in my neighborhood. The leaves were hanging over a fence and I loved the texture of them and their simplicity. As you will see in the following description of my process, they were hanging against a purple fence. I felt that the color really distracted from the texture that attracted me to them in the first place, so this ended up being a tinted black and white project. I also just began playing with a new Photoshop filter called  Fractalius. I use it very lightly, but I love the texture it adds.

I love the way this turned out!