Softening the light

This exercise required two photographs of a still life arrangement, one with a naked lamp and one with a diffused light source:

Naked Lamp

Diffused

Fortunately Tigger the Duck kindly volunteered for the exercise: the images were shot at 800 ISO and f/5.3 aperture on aperture priority using greaseproof paper as the diffuser.  With the naked shot, the shutter speed set itself to 1/45s, but with the diffused shot it stopped down to 1/20s.  The lighting in the naked shot is harsher, deeper colours and stronger shadows, and also more texture.  The lighting in the diffused shot is softer, brighter colours and softer shadows with less texture.  I prefer the naked shot - I imagined the diffuser to be an improvement, but in this case it wasn't.  Perhaps with a portrait of a person it would be though?