Monday August 28 2023

[Dave]

OSIM, folks. (That's kinda like TGIF, but altered for a Monday.)

During yesterday's early walk I saw something worth photographing.  And I decided to show the original photo plus two different crops.

1) The original, with no editing other than to add a little clarity in Camera Raw - not bad for essentially SOOTC...

   

I saw that I'd need to flip it horizontally; that was better but I still had a problem: the arcing red blossoms were way too close to the right edge.

So in PSE I added space to the right edge. But then I needed to fill it realistically. I didn't think the Clone Stamp tool was the best way to proceed, so using the Rectangular Selection tool to select various parts of the image, then pasted each selection into the added space. The idea was to fill up that added space in a way that wasn't repetitive and looked realistic. This worked pretty well but still needed more work to appear natural. So I applied a little Gaussian Blur to this area - much better, although if you look closely it still appears a bit repetitive).

2) Next I did my usual kinds of edits in PSE: using adjustment layers I tweaked brightness & contrast and color saturation here and there. And I fine-tuned the image with a slightly different crop. Here's that version...

   

3) Finally I tried a square crop and did the same sorts of PSE adjustments as in #2...

   

Wishing all of us a good week.

[Man From Ironbark]

Whilst I can see why you made the alterations and I like them all, the first image intrigues me the most.

This is known as the green comb spider orchid. Caladenia dilatata.

[Don]

Good morning gentlemen and welcome to the new week. Thanks for getting us started Dave.

I like the selective lighting and moodiness or the images, Dave.  I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite.

Peter, I can see why it is called a "comb" spider orchid. It has really nice colors too.

Yesterday, I went back out to get some more images and was able to get one of a couple of Swallowtail butterflies and a Hummingbird moth.

[Man From Ironbark]

Beautiful images Don.
I did notice you change from Don to Admin. Does this mean you've renewed the domain?

   

[Don]

"I did notice you change from Don to Admin. Does this mean you've renewed the domain?"

Nah, that just means I logged in as Admin rather than Don so I could make changes to the site. A place for discussion about what we should do moving forward.

[Rich]

Dave, a very interesting plant! The first photo a WoW came out of my mouth. The highlights are not washed out. Detail in the shadows and one blossom lower right still visible and adds interest. The other manips don't have that. Your right about the blossoms on the left too close to the edge. Fix that like you did on the other one and this photo gets Best of Show!

Peter, I can see how it got the name! Very unique!

Don, awesome close ups. Sharp and well composed and exposed!

Yes a discussion thread would be good.

[Man From Ironbark]

All these orchids which were once widespread all the time since Australia split from Gondwana. These days they are either extinct or endangered due to land clearing for profit and gain to only a very few.

I called this 'cuddling leopards' as it is two leopard orchid spikes entwiined. Diuris maculata.

[Rich]

Beautiful Peter!