Another kinda-gardeny thing to do in mid-winter is to take pictures of bare trees. And having just finished the videos about Picasa on Lynda.com, I'm all for trying some of their extremely easy special effects. For the photo on the right I used a touch of Saturation and also Warmify. (I love that word, though I'm not so sure about the effect itself.)
That white oak is front and center in the view from the Adirondack chairs in my back yard. Given the amount of time I spend looking at, it probably qualifies as my altar, for all intents and purposes.
This next shot taken in the the woodland part of my garden is untouched except some cropping. I love that snag in the middle, and the sounds of the woodpeckers it attracts.
You know, some gardening organization needs to copy the Lynda.com model and provide lessons via short video tutorials. At my job they use Lynda for software training and I find it better that actually going to class with a live teacher. They're short and only cover one point at a time so if you find yourself lost you can just watch it over and over again. Some of it is kinda basic but the amount of training videos they offer is amazing.
As far as photo tweaking - I spend all day immersed in Photoshop so I rarely play around in other software. Isn't it fun the way a camera lens can make you see things differently. Even things you look at everyday.
Posted by: John | January 25, 2010 at 06:17 AM
John - check MonkeySee.com and search under "garden" - you'll see short garden how-to videos bya variety of people including myself and GardenRanter Susan Harris.
Posted by: Kathy J, Washington Gardener Mag | January 25, 2010 at 12:38 PM
Imagine my surprise to come to a Buffalo blog being that I live in Amherst NY. And it's true, I do take a lot of photos of bare trees in the winter... My Festival of The Trees Post..Herbie The Elm Tree
Posted by: ramblingwoods | February 01, 2010 at 07:37 PM