Saturday, November 17, 2007

Green carnation

I was going to write something today, on the basis of the one picture/one writing balance I set out to achieve. However, in the time I had set aside to do so, a friend rang up, then the internet died on me for a while, then I had a date with Tom, Molly, the sofa, a bag of popcorn and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which DVD arrived the other day. Scoff all you wish oh Arbiters of Good Taste, ( to say nothing of Healthy Eating and the Not on the Furniture School of Doggy Discipline...), so writing will have to wait until tomorrow.

Fortunately, I had a picture I'd prepared earlier. The parasol pine as seen from our window always makes me think of a Japanese woodcut at this time of year against the evening sky. I thought I would try to enhance this effect with a bit of mucking about. This is using Photoshop 'Threshold', or 'seuil' as it's known in my French version - took me a while to work that one out - then a double dose of Picasa's graduated tint, plus a squirt of extra saturation for good measure.
Never could resist guilding the lily.

6 comments:

andy said...

Gorgeous picture!

And I have to confess, the reason I managed to post very little yesterday was largely that I spent the evening watching a certain DVD...
:-)

Pam said...

Wow, that's beautiful. Also love that quilt! And the cobwebs.

I'm trying to catch up with reading my favourite blogs but everyone's writing so much in this Na-whatever. Help!

leslee said...

That is a lovely scene. I must get Photoshop one of these days. I hear the Photoshop Elements version is pretty good. I use this pretty basic Jasc Paintshop Photo Album program for touch-ups and cropping.

Hope you enjoyed your evening on the couch - sounds wonderful to me!

meggie said...

Lovely tree profile! My first thought when I saw the colour, was, 'this is not real??'

jzr said...

Great photo!! Great "mucking about!"

Lucy said...

Thanks all.
The evening on the couch was highly enjoyable!
I often have three photoprogrammes running at once: Photoshop for shrinking, luminosity and contrast and saturation, Picasa for sharpening, straightening, graduated tint, saturation too, collages and any other little tricks I can find, and the Corel freebie that came with the computer which is nstill the quickest easiest way to crop. My Photoshop was passed on from a French friend and hence is all in French. I looked into ordering 'Elements' but was a bit shocked at the price, and there were some negative comments about installation. I understand there is a free download equivalent, but I forget its name. Picasa is worthwhile, though sometimes it seems to me the results don't look as good as the first appear...