Forgetmenot

I was thrilled to find these still in flower in my garden a couple of weeks back, usually I'd have to wait till spring to see them but our winter here in Dunedin has been relatively mild so far, but as the old saying goes "as the days grow longer, the cold grows stronger" and we often find that this is the case.

Sorry, I don't do long posts  like Paul in his blog posts or rambles as he puts it,  there's only so much you can write about flowers after all, but I was surprised when I did the  mouse-over of this one how dark the original photo was compared to the finished one.
*notes to self to try this recipe again*

Gelato Ice @ hardlight 36%
Orange Blossom@ softlight 100%
Copy of background @ soft light 100%
Peacock @ screen 53 % masked from the focus areas.

See it on Flickr

Spring Painterly Pack

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$40

Summer Painterly Pack

36 large textures for only $40

Complete Flypaper Package

Tex Box 1, Tex box 2, Fly Edges, Summer Painterly & Spring Painterly

$180

Flypaper Triple Combo Deal
$100 for Tex Box One and Two and the Fly Edges

Combo Pack Offer

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Fly Edges Pack

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Cosmos

This comes hot off the press (or camera) so to speak.  Taken a couple of hours ago with my lensbaby while I was out walking. Winter is fast approaching here in New Zealand so I have to make the most of the lovely day we're having and finding these in flower was an added bonus.
And now that I've processed and posted this I'd better get back to tidying my own jungle of a  garden!

Fairly simple processing.
Sakura Skies  @ screen 18%
Pantheon Stone @ soft light 19% masked off the focus flower.
Syrinx @ Overlay 55%
Sakura Skies @ Overlay 100%
Curves layer to tweak tone
All textures are from the Spring Painterly pack.

Spring Painterly Pack

40 Large Textures (38 square and two huge rectangles) for only

$40

Summer Painterly Pack

36 large textures for only $40

Complete Flypaper Package

Tex Box 1, Tex box 2, Fly Edges, Summer Painterly & Spring Painterly

$180

Flypaper Triple Combo Deal
$100 for Tex Box One and Two and the Fly Edges

Combo Pack Offer

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

Only $40

See all our packs and deals on one Page

My first cover!

My first book cover, or at least the first one I've managed to find. Although my image (the bird and branches) only makes up a small portion of the cover I'm thrilled! And yes I'll be buying the book and will even read it, might have to read the previous books in the series first though.
Here's the book on Amazon
And here's my original photo on Flickr

Summer Painterly Pack

36 large textures for only $40

Flypaper Triple Combo Deal
$100 for Tex Box One and Two and the Fly Edges

Combo Pack Offer

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

Only $40

See all our packs and deals on one Page

Road to the Sky

This was taken at the top of the Old Man Range, the mountain range that overlooks Alexandra and is over 6000 metres. There's a very steep road to the top, put in to service a TV transmitter. Going up there is like visiting a whole new world, it's remarkably flat on the top with the occasional huge rock tor rising out of the ground. The landscape at first glance looks barren but there are a multitude of low growing alpine plants, low growing because of the extreme climate, it's very exposed and windy and nothing on the top "plain" grows more than a few centimetre high. In winter it's covered in snow, and when we were up there in midsummer there were still patches of snow in the valleys.

This is one of the many photos I took up there....
All the textures I used were from the second pack.
Lavender Skies @Overlay 69% This is a remarkably versatile texture. I used it in this case to lighten up the under exposed foreground. Some of the texture was removed from the sky using a mask.
Beowulf @ Overlay 100 %
Algae @ Soft Light 75%
Algae @ Overlay 33 %

This combination gave a soft watercolour look to the landscape (which looks much better bigger than the small version you see here or on flickr).

Combo Pack Offer

Only $65 for Both texture Packs!

Golden Gingko

Gingko leaves in an old bottle with an added touch of our wonderful "Tarte Tatin" texture to give depth and a painterly look.