Cyanotype

This is my first attempt at creating a cyanotype effect in Adobe Photoshop CS2.

I love the colours of the original cyanotype process and have tried to recreate the effect using Duotone.

The original image taken a few years ago with a Nikon CP990 needed a bit of work as you can see.

After rotating, curves adjustment and cropping the image was converted to greyscale and then to duotone using the colours and curves below.

Once the duotone had been applied the image was converted back to RGB and a polaroid border applied. After saving as a PSD file the image was then resized, flattened and saved for web. Job done!

The return of the Arc?

June normally sees this part of Warwickshire receive 63mm of rain for the entire month. In just twelve hours on Friday we had over 100mm of rain and the deluge continued over the weekend. The subsequent flooding affected a considerable number of properties and 100 workers were trapped on the top floor of a nearby factory as the flood waters rose to 6 feet and more. I'm half expecting to see people building Arcs in their back garden.

No garden photography possible again over the weekend due to the rain and the fact that it was Father's day here in the UK.

The photograph below is of a Campanula portenschlagiana (Dalmation Bellflower) from my garden. This has been published as a greetings card by CardsAtYourFingertips.

As it looks as though the rain is set to continue for the rest of the week I have set myself a couple of tasks.

The first is to update the review of the Seagull Right Angle Finder on my website.

The second is to make a start on a review of the Samsung GX-10 DSLR. I was lucky enough to have my portfolio selected as the best submitted to Digital SLR User magazine for their Totally Exposed Competition for June 2007 winning me a GX-10. As I've had the camera for three months now I thought it was about time to write a user review.

I was also fortunate to have an image selected for the cover of Digital SLR User magazine for June.

Once the reviews are complete I'll post details here.

Rain stops play

Cranesbill (Geranium maculatum)

The Cranesbill geraniums have just started flowering in my garden. I was hoping to get out there yesterday and again today with the camera and spend an hour or two getting some more shots of this strikingly beautiful flower but the rain stopped play I’m afraid. I thought the rain was bad yesterday but overnight it got worse and when I got up this morning I was greeted with a garden under two inches of water. No garden photography again then.

Oh well, maybe tomorrow……………

As I've been unable to photograph them so far this year this is a photograph taken a couple of years ago.

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