CORN IS IN SEASON

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme,
and also part of the Nature Footstep Digital Art Meme.

GERBERAS LIQUIDISED

I am testing out a new free image processing program for Macintosh called "Affinity". This is an alternative to the highly popular Photoshop. I must say that I am impressed! Of course after having used Photoshop for so long, becoming familiar with a new image processing interface will take some time, but I am willing to try as I do not wish to pay a monthly subscription to keep using Photoshop. Having just switched computers, I found to my horror that I could not use my (legal and licensed) copy of Photoshop on my new computer... So here's to Affinity!

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme,
and also part of the Nature Footstep Digital Art Meme.

DAHLIA CHANGES

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme,
and also part of the Nature Footstep Digital Art Meme.

BRUNIA VARIATIONS

Brunia albiflora is a tall, slender, single-stemmed but well-branched shrub, reaching 2-3 m in height. The long, slender branches are densely leafy, with beautiful dark green foliage that resembles a pine tree, but is much softer. The leaves are 10-14 mm long and narrow (0.7 mm diameter), narrowly lanceolate to linear, black-tipped and covered with delicate hairs.

The flowers are tiny, and are crowded into tight spherical knob-like inflorescences (± 15 mm wide) that are clustered into flat, rounded heads. The knobby inflorescences are covered by scale-like leaves, and before the white flowers break through, they are green touched with black and silver and are also very decorative. Each tiny flower is about 7 mm long, white with yellow stamens sticking out, giving the inflorescence a yellowish tinge. Old flowers age to cream.

After flowering and fertilisation, the flowers turn brown and drop off. The knobby infructescence turns green, ageing to brown in time (seen in its natural colour in the first photo) and it stays on the bush for up to six years, so the remains of the previous year's flowerhead can be seen lower down on the stem. Flowering time is late summer to autumn.
I've digitally processed the remaining four photos through a lengthy and superimposed bunch of filters and colour effects.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme,
and also part of the Nature Footstep Digital Art Meme.

AIR CON VARIATIONS

A group of rather boring air conditioning equipment on a roof undergoes some transformations with the aid of Photoshop.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme.

SUNLESS, SUNSET, SUNFUL

The Spencer St Bridge over the Yarra River in Melbourne. With some artistic licence taken, Photoshop helping along the way...

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme.

VICTORIAN FACES

These architectural face decorations are part of a row of Victorian shop/dwellings in Collingwood, an inner Melbourne suburb and were built in the prosperous late nineteenth century. I have taken some liberties with Photoshop...

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme.

FIGTREE FUN

This huge ficus tree with its prodigious roots was found in the Yarra Bend Park in Melbourne, Australia. After some playing with Photoshop I obtained some interesting results.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme,
and also part of the Nature Footsteps Inspiring Photography meme.

HOME DÉCOR

We saw these home décor accessories in a shop a few days ago. The orange lantern and vase were quite striking, as you can see in the first image, which is straight-out-of camera. I then used the poster edges command in Photoshop and adjusted the brightness/contrast for the second image.

The third image was a further processing of Image 2, with various adjustments to colour and colour balance. The third image was more processing of Image 2, with selective masking and changes in colour balance.

Image 5 is a cut-up combination of several areas of Images 4 & 5.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme,
and also part of the Nature Footsteps Inspiring Photography meme.

GARDEN ITERATIONS

The first shot is a straight out of the camera image taken in the School of Botany's System Garden of the University of Melbourne. I then Photoshopped the image, taking it through several passes via a sepia filter so that the colour was almost completely neutralised. This is image 2.

I then used the saturation and colour balance commands to try to regain some of the colour, emphasising the orange and green. These are the third and fourth images, which have also been enhanced with some of the filters in the Photoshop art filter gallery. The last image shows the effect of more fine tuning of colour and an oil painting filter.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Mandarin Orange Monday meme,
and also part of the Nature Footsteps Inspiring Photography meme.