Our Hibiscus, Photo Essay With Edited Photos

Our Hibiscus

I took the first photo with our kodak easyshare camera (no, I'm no professional) - this is the first photo, unedited. I also used the auto-setting, but did use the telephoto lens, just to get the couple flowers that I got, as there were more on the bush.

This one is cropped a bit, edited with Picassa 3, and added hue (pink), saturation, just a little bit. The next one, I sharpened it a bit and the third one, I added more pink hue, added saturation (a setting in the program), and brought the inside upfront a bit and blurred the edges. There isn't much difference between the first two, below, but you can see a difference in the third.

The next three are the most edited.  Going back to the same program, I lightened this one up a little bit, wanting to see if I could get a gauzy-dreamy type effect, then decided in the next one, to add a bit more pink.

The last one, I wanted to see how changing the colors in different places and blending them in would change the look -- it turned out, quite a bit! Try out the free programs, I'm really having fun with this one, if you can't tell.

These flowers only last for one day. You have to deadhead them each day, so they'll keep blooming. There are many, many blooms and it's worth getting one of these, as they do come in various colors. This is a two year old bush and when it's older, while it's not quite there yet, the blooms get to over the size each, of a large dinner-plate.

We have another type of hibiscus bush that we bought because the flowers last several days, with many blooms, but though there are lots and lots of flowers, they never get to even half the size these do.

Thanks for looking!

mn - 2009