Published Images that Earned You Money

Could go on an hallmark card. !! So lovely

so beautiful!

After reading your critique stating your reasons for believing another contest entry was a composite and what could be done to improve it, I came back to give your entry a closer look. I thought you might like to know what could be done to increase your photos believability.
Its biggest problem is the sloppy clone work across the lowest 1/3 of the photo. A few places where it really shows are as follows : Along the very bottom in the closest foreground, the 2 largest clumps of flowers are exact duplicates. Also below each wing the tallest large clumps of flowers are duplicates,(Its harder to spot because only the left side of the left clump was copied). Slightly lower on the page, on the right side, the same exact very small flower bud is repeated at full opacity 3 times in a row, then repeated another couple of times in the same area at a lower opacity. There too may other repeats to point them all out. No need to point out the depth of field issues between the owl and the background because the many repeats in your clone work are glaring and in themselves put this in the 'needs work' category. I am lowering my score accordingly.