Special " FX"

I've been practicing with my camera trying to learn how to take better pictures. It's a struggle for me, almost as hard as learning how to do things on the computer.
I got this cactus for Easter from my husband. It was all tight buds when he brought it home. A few days later we were rewarded with georgeous fuschia blooms. I took a few shots of it yesterday. When I downloaded them off the camera and tried to post one to my blog the color was so bright it hurt my eyes. I played around on my photo editing software ( I use the basic Microsoft Picture it Express; it's very Paula friendly) and applied a special effect to it called gradiant, then I cropped it.

Now it doesn't give me a headache looking at it. It's a beautiful color in real life, not so much on film.

Anyways, here's my cactus; hope everyone around the country has spring weather soon. The snow, rain and winds WILL go away and warm weather will return to you.

Ciao!