Bench artwork

Bench photo taken in Tucson, AZ. Exposure adjustment and simplify and Impression 2 Topaz filters used to make it look like a painting when you zoom in.

Castle Wall Painting

Castle wall in France. Beautiful old castle with vines and roses climbing up the tired bricks. It is hard to imagine how long it has been since someone pruned that yellow rose.

Double Door Artwork

Double Door from Italy. Texture 2 topaz filter and Impression 2 painting filter. Old low resolution images brightened up and transformed into a painting. Fun Stuff!

Happy Halloween

Italia Doors Drawing

Italian door and balcony, sketch effect with impression filter added to make it look a bit like a painting.

Cezanne III

Flirtatious Hybrid Tea with brush strokes from the Topaz filter Impression 2 along with a first layer using the Simplify Filter.

Flirtatious

Flirtatious hybrid tea Rose filtered so she looks like a painting rather than a photo. Softer background and a touch of brush strokes.

Double Delight as Art

Double Delight Hybrid Tea Rose after being worked over a bit using Topaz Filters and their texture filter. Color, detail and  certain crispness.

Lonely Lighthouse Painting

Lonely lighthouse on the Oregon Coast. Turning photos into art again, and having fun!

Dahlia as Painting

Garden variety Dahlia blossom. Topaz filter simplify used to create a water color image, and then the Impression 2 filter used to emulate an oil painting.

Peace Rose Painting

Peace hybrid tea rose blossom from the garden.
Topaz filters used to emulate a painting include Simplify, Impression 2, and Glow. Such fun to go through old photos and tweak them a bit.

Pretty and Pink

Another pink rose from the garden. Early morning light and Topaz filters make an interesting image.

Bewitched

One of the earliest bloomers in our yard. Misty morning made for moisture and a different image. Edward Hopper imitation using Topaz Impression and Glow

SF Conservatory

A long ago trip to the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers. Visitors for out of town tend to make me feel like a tourist and we take a visit to the "City". Painting created using Topaz filters.

Tabu Rose Bud Painting

Tabu Rose Bud as a painting. A bit of color in unexpected places ads a bit of interest and surprise.

Red Rose Blossom as Oil Painting

Red rose bud taken on one of our trips. Blurred the background a bit, and masked the rose so it could on its own layer and then filtered with the Impresso Filter  and used my oil painting preset.

Butterfly Bush Blossom

Your new butterfly bush is in bloom. This plant is very pretty, and very invasive.We are keeping it in a 3 gallon pot in the ground. Used the Topaz Glow filter and changed the background on this one.

Pink Rose with a glow

New Topaz filter called Glow 2. Interesting effects to play with, and enjoy. This Rose bud was selected from a background, painted with Impression 2 and the I added a soft light glow.
Fun!

Sally Holmes Painting

Macro image of Sally Holmes Rosebush. Wonderful climbing multifloras rose that blooms all summer. Used the Topaz glow filter to soften the image.

New Zealand Blue Rose Painting

New Zealand Rose Garden Painting. Hybrid tea rose from down under. Called  a blue rose, but it appears to be somewhat magenta to me. Topaz filters simplify (crisp edge) and impression painterly (cz III personal creation)

Christmas Cactus Painting

Up close and personal macro image of a Christmas cactus. Simplify filter and Impression filter used to create a painting.

4th of July Rose Painting

Fourth of July Rose photo as a painting. This Climbing rose has flowers all year, and is wonderful to watch all seasons.
Topaz filters Simplify and Impression were used to get the painterly effect.

Hot Cocoa Painting

Hot Cocoa hybrid rose bush. Macro photography with topaz filters used (simplify and immersion 2) to create a painterly image.

Orchids in San Francisco

San Francisco Botanical Garden orchid plant on a sunny day. Cleaned up a bit and then Topaz filters to look like an oil painting.

Fern Painting

Ferns up close taken at the SF conservatory.
Topaz filters simplify as Oil Painting and the Impression 2 as a an O'Keefe image modified a bit by me.

Jack Sprat Flax

Finally getting some gardening in place after the long California drought. Jack Sprat Dwarf plants that are enjoyable, bloom just once a year and look good if they get enough water.

Lily

Black and white bordered image of a Lily. Just a hint of contrast with a bit of gray to minimize the color and make the eyes dance around to follow the circular lines and patterns.

Lake Como Water Taxi Trip

Lovely long ride in a fast water taxi as we took off for the islands outside of Venice. Scenery was wonderful, needed a high ISO and fast shutter speed to try to hand hold the camera and get things in focus. Wonderful Day!

Monet's Garden Painting

Wonderful train ride out to Monet's Garden. The flowers are completely changed every 3 months to go with what is in season for that time of year. Wonderful color and variety always. Topaz filters simplify and impression 2 used to get the painted look. Hoping to get back there soon.

Glen Ellen Gardens

Glen Ellen Botanical Garden. Beautiful place close to Santa Rosa where most, if not all of the plants come from China.
Springtime is best, and if you plan ahead you can have a driver take you around the large garden in a golf cart. Topaz filters used to resemble a Monet Painting.

Painted Pale Purple Orchid

Pale purple orchid taken into topaz Impression 2 and using the Painterly version to soften it a bit and perhaps make it resemble an impressionist painter.

Castle Rose Painting

Old French Castle outside Lyon. Domestic Rose that had been there for a very long time. Amazing how roses just keep growing and blooming wherever they are planted.
Topaz simplify and Impression 2 filters used for the paint effect.

Bold Orchid Macro in color

A bit of a boa showing up here with the white orchid. Fuzzy and a bit of fun of a close up of this wonderful flower.

Orchid as a Black and White

A bit of fluff added to this one when I photographed it in color a couple of years back. The white look was intensional, and it might be fun to do a photo grouping on a wall. We often look for dark blacks and bright whites with black and white images.

Gerbera Black and White 3

Last one of a series of Gerbera flowers from the garden. Black and white for a change of view.
Having fun trying out new color filters in photoshop.

Gerbera 2 Black and White

Another black and white Gerbera. This one is a yellow one and I used a yellow filter with the conversion.

Gerbera Black and White

Gerber blossom reproduced as black and white image. I am not quite sure if the background is Ok or if it is a bit too dark.

Merced River and Lupine

Just into the valley at Yosemite there was a grouping of Lupine inside the walled off area at the side of the road. Tried new Topaz filter called Impression 2 for paint effect.

Another pretty wildflower

Last trip to the Berkeley Botanical Garden in May. Proper name of this flower is Rotundifolia Amairoa. What fun it would be to have one in the garden to watch each day as tiny blossoms open from these pointy spheres.

River Dogwoods Photo Painting

Dogwoods in the breeze, painterly image. It is always very windy by this bridge in Yosemite.
The flowers are delightful, but they don't hold still for photos. Close to where you turn onto the one way road coming into the valley.

Tunnel View Panorama

Handholding panoramas is a bit tricky, and making it a painting is more forgiving of focus issues.

Very up and down hilly hike to the meadow to see the tallest trees in California. April 2016 and probably visit to these beautiful trees in the Tuolumne grove.One tree was hollowed out from a fire and there were photos of a stage coach driving through the center.

Dogwood Backs

The Ahwahnee hotel after a wonderful breakfast in the main dinning room. Fun to just wander around. The sun was bright and the light coming through the blossoms was wonderful. Notice I am ignoring the name change.

Soft Pink Lily

Pink Lily softened with the Topaz Impression painting preset Seuart Afternoon III.

Taken in the yard a couple of weeks ago. Just a little softening and sharpening.

Red Wildflower

Berkeley Botanical Garden trip 2 weeks ago.
Not certain what this is as the signs are sometimes hidden in the underbrush.

Topaz filter use to simulate Van Gogh style painting.

M Poppy Painting

A bit early this year, like everything else.
These self sowing poppies are large and wonderful. They would be hard to control in a personal garden, but look lovely on the hillsides.

Checking out a new camera today.

Early evening image with one Impression filter used on the background, and another setting for the flower itself.

Rhoddy blossoms

No special effects
here other than to
darken the background
and show off the
pink of the flowers.

Taken in the yard
about 2 weeks ago.

Poppy wet and wild

A quick shot taken right after
watering the garden.

Working on using the Topaz
filters polarizing and impression.

People's Choice Award at Photo Central Show

The Photo Central Spring Show closed and we had to pick up our images. (thanks Carol). To my surprise, my "Tides of Time" image was a People's Choice Award Winner.