Friday, Jan 19, 2024

[Don]

Good morning all from somewhere off the coast of Cuba, on the way to Ft Lauderdale. The end of the cruise is fast approaching. We should get home late tomorrow night. It has been fun and interesting. Unfortunately I don’t think I got a lot of great photos, but I did get numerous travel snapshots. Hope to catch up more once we get home and more settled.

[Dave]

Hi Don. I'm glad it has been a good trip.

TGIF, folks (for MFI who is already into or nearing Saturday - I hope it was a good one).

Lorell's exquisite rose image made me realize that I haven't tried an artistic image in months.

So I downloaded and installed the latest version of FotoSketcher and went to work on a photo taken 3 days ago.

First, here is the original image of a rather pristine rose processed as a "regular" photo...

   

And this morning I edited it in FotoSketcher, using several iterations of one of their watercolor routines. I also tweaked values and color intensity (to tone down the too vivid reds), and a touch of USM here and their. Mine isn't nearly as sophisticated as Lorell's and the watercolor effect isn't as strong as I intended, but it was fun...

   

I wish you all a productive, safe, and healthy weekend.

[Man From Ironbark]

You were on the ball about time Dave. When you posted it was approximately midnight here. When I'm posting this is at 3:49AM Sat.
I do like both treatments of the pink rose. Maybe I should get back into photo editing. My main issue is that I really can't afford expensive software. I used to play in photoshop but I didn't own the copy.

From the dawn storm that I photographed on December 15 came a number of different sky hues. This was shot earliest in the sequence, before the storm arrived and the rest were of the storm arriving in the dawn light. This shot taken looking just a little east of south from within my backyard, the rest were shot outside the back fence where I've planted a lot of trees over the years. The storm arrived from the south west.



This image is the dawn light hitting the first sight of the storm.

[Rich]

Welcome back Don!

Dave, I would love to be able to paint a rose that good in watercolor! Good BG treatment!

The second one is a killer Peter! Good composition and the sky color is awesome! Interesting trees.

[Man From Ironbark]

The trees in the back are a tiny remnant of what was the local mallee community. The roughbarked tree in front right is a Fuzzy box or Eucalyptus conica. Named thus due to the conical shaped fruiting bud or ask we say, gumnut.
This is from further back so it also includes a Yellow Box.

[Dave]

Beautiful photos, MFI.

[Man From Ironbark]

thanks Dave. I put something like 24 photos on Flickr of how that sunrisre looked as it and the storm evolved..

[Dreamin]

Hi, Don. Hope your trip was enjoyable.....looking forward to your travel shots.....
Dave, that is a beautiful rose....it's fun to play in FotoSketcher, I haven't done it in a long time.......
Peter, absolutely stunning shots of that storm...I love how the light changes all the colors....very dramatic.

[Man From Ironbark]

Hey everyone. Natalie has returned.

[Rich]

Welcome Back Natalie!