WIND, WHISPERS, & WONDER

Blending Layers in Photoshop

I just returned to one of my favorite gardens within one of my favorite gardens - that would be the "Z" Garden, made possible with donations from Les Brake of Coyote Gardens in Willow, which is situated in the Georgeson Botanical Garden in Fairbanks, Alaska. I suspect it might be called the "Z" garden after Susie Zimmerman, a dedicated volunteer who tends to this garden. This image is dedicated to Susie.

Below is a brief look behind the scenes to see how this came together.

On June 22, 2016, I met Susie weeding the garden (photos below). In the upper right corner of the photo on the right, you can see the gold and rust colored Rudbeckia just beginning to make an appearance. When I recently returned on August 31st, I was surprised at the number of healthy plants vying for space while basking in the sun.

[Note also the single pink flowered stem of Nomocharis in the lower right.]

So, I hunkered down and squinted through my 180mm macro lens set on manual focus. As I watched the transition from blur to clear to blur and so forth, I found that place where art is born - a blend of colors, shapes, and light. And I decided to create an image here (lower left), not yet knowing what I was going to do with it. The flowers were so close together, I knew I had to rule out a clean background. So I embraced it.

And, then I created another image (lower right) by selectively focusing on the center of the flower.

These two images were imported to Adobe Lightroom, minor edits were made, and then brought together in Adobe Photoshop.

With the images on different layers, I painted one into the other to taste by varying the opacity of the brush tool.

The final image went back to Lightroom for final adjustments.

And since we're here, I'll share some images of  the Nomocharis...

Hope you all had a wonder-filled summer!