Eliminating what's not necessary

Sometimes the littlest things can make the biggest difference. You might be tempted to be satisfied; after all, just look at that nice raindrop on the petal.
But take a closer look. See those extra bright spots in the background? Those are more raindrops on petals. And they really don't add anything good to the image. In fact, they add distractions: bright spots pulling the eye away from other important parts of the picture.
All it takes is to notice these distractions and you'll come up with solutions to get rid of them. But first you have to notice them. There are a couple "tricks" that can help here. The first, and best, is to use your depth of field preview button to see if any "extras" will pop into the picture. The second isn't so much a trick as it is simply developing the discipline to look beyond your subject to see what else is in the frame and to ask yourself if it helps or detracts.
In this case, all it took was a slight change of camera position to eliminate the extra bright spots in the background. This is really easy to do, but first you have to notice the problem.

Nikon F5, Fuji Velvia. Camera settings not recorded.