What I Did Before Going to Bed Yesterday, More Photo Madness [sunflower Seeds]

1. The "original", a realistic rendering of the RAW file that came out of the camera.

2. Derived from 1.

3. Derived from 1.

4. Derived from 1.

5. Derived from 1.

6. Derived from 5, by inversion.

7. Derived from 1.

8. Derived from 7 by inversion.

9. Derived from 1 by eliminating color.

For 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 I started by applying a color gradient to the original image. Such a gradient (a feature in Photoshop) applies a sequence of colors to the gray scale (luminance) values of the original image, resulting is a coloring that is more or less arbitrary with respect to the original. In the cases of 2 and 4 I then "faded" the gradient to the point where the original colors dominate the image and the gradient appears as a "wash" over those colors. In 3, 5, and 7 I allowed the gradient to dominate. As the labels indicate, 6 derives from 5 and 8 from 7, both by "inverting" the colors – substituting complimentary colors for the original colors.
Why did I leave the black and white image for last? Why not?