Region Segmentation

I've mentioned that the program first divides the images into segments. Each segment is blended together with neighboring ones to get a smooth appearance (some of the time). This is both a technical requirement to make this process faster and also an aesthetic one. By creating larger or smaller regions you can get some interesting effects.

To start, let's look at one with really small regions:

Wow, from a distance it looks just like the color image. Zoom in, you can see hints of the flowers. Now, if we increase the region size, things get more interesting:

Look at the flower petals as the regions get larger. They're more defined with larger regions of the same color. I tend to use regions somewhere in the middle. While we're on this image, here's two more polished versions (some post-processing in Photoshop):