Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Datura Bloom



This is a datura bloom in various stages. I don't really like this paticular one because once the bud opens completely up it has a tendecy to fall over from the weight of the bloom.

13 comments:

Paula said...

Lovely collage! I like to take shots of the same thing at different stages of growth. One year, we gave Eric's dad the story of cotton - from the sprout in the field to the bale with our farm name written on with spray paint. A total of 9 or 10 pictures. I loved it! He loved it!! Now I just need to do that with sunflowers. Another crop we planted. How do you put together your photos? Yesterday's photo was quite unusual, as well. Is there a website you use? I'd like to learn this technique. Please e-mail me at homesteading@comcast.net.
Thanks!
Paula

kris said...

Beautiful!

DeeMom said...

Imaginative shot & lovely flower

Dirty Fingernails said...

we got rain as well yesterday. You could hear the Hallelujah chorus... My angel trumped is starting to put out its buds.. I am anxious for it to bloom.. I have had a heck of a time keeping off the jap. beetles.

Robin's Nesting Place said...

O.K.now it's your turn to spill the beans (I did the Photoshop Elements the other day). Play show and tell and let us in on how you are doing the beautiful collages. Pretty please.

Iowa Gardening Woman said...

Robin, I use Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro both. The two collages I did last night were done in Paint Shop Pro, I tend to use it more as I have been using it longer, the first version I bought was Version 3, they are now on 11 and I have used them all.

I open the photos I want to use, then I use the selection tool on each photo (each photo is a separate layer) to select the part of the photo I want, I have the feather set to anywhere from 5 to 15 to somewhat blend the edges (15 on the zinnia, 5 on the datura) after selecting the part of the photo you want, reverse the selection and hit delete, this removes the part of the photo you do not want. I do this on each photo and then arrange the layers the way I want them. The zinnia collage has blue sky as the background the datura is a close up of the bloom. After you have it arranged the way you want, you merge the layers and save it in jpeg format. On the Datura collage, I added a small black border to define the edge of the three smaller photos.

Hope this helps.

Robin's Nesting Place said...

Thanks for the explanation. I've never learned to do layers, it's all kind of intimidating to me. I'll have to play with it and see if I can figure it out. Again thanks for sharing.

Iowa Gardening Woman said...

Robin, don't be intimidated by layers, just think of them as pieces of papers.

Connie Peterson said...

I am going to try that - thank you for your explination.

Iowa Gardening Woman said...

Connie pointed out a mistake in my directions for the collage, after making your selection, the command is INVERT not reverse. Sorry!

A wildlife gardener said...

We need some sunshine...we've got too much rain...can we swap, please?

Lovely datura collage :)

Tira said...

Lovely datura and zinnias,flowers of a caribbean childhood!

Sue said...

Love those datura! Mine haven't even formed buds yet this year. Hopefully soon.

We in NE Ohio also need rain, badly. Soon, I hope.