Blame it on insomnia…

You would think after a weekend of child care I would have slept like a log last night – but not a bit of it.

So the over-abundance of manipulated pictures of a passion flower now residing on my computer is the product of those hours in the chilly fastnesses of the night. [Short pause while I Google that phrase and don’t find it – I thought it was a quote but maybe it’s just a family saying.]

I am NOT a computer manipulation guru – just an embroiderer who can’t draw, I’m not much of a techie either which is why I like simple picture editing programs. [I will learn Paint Shop Pro one day. I will. I will.]

I always use my own photos – this avoids copyright problems and they are more personal and meaningful anyway. Even a photo of a plank.

What I discovered last night was just how many free programs there are out there. I think I still like Picnik the best – but I did find one or two others that I will use again.

So to prevent this series stretching into infinity – today you get three – er, four- er five -for the price of one.

These were all done with Picasa, which is the [free!] program I use for basic photo fixes like straightening up slanted snaps and removing redeye – which Picasa 3 does brilliantly by the way. It also makes collages, as you may have noticed …

It has a dozen simple effects, of which my favourites are saturation, sharpen, saturation, film grain, – and did I mention saturation?

So I took that subtle passion flower image I showed you yesterday and …

This is saturated. Three times. [You can desaturate as well but where’s the fun in that?]

Probably not one to choose if you don’t like bright colours but I think this abstracted shape would lend itself well to stitch.

A quick extra – the green one in B&W – just a little more subtle.

 

 

 

 

 

For  this one I used the warmify and glow effects – oh, and a touch of saturation.

Perhaps not such an obvious candidate for stitch but some interesting colours, outside my usual colour choices.

 

And for something a bit more restrained – I used the the black and white effect and then, from the Tuning menu, I added highlights and shadows at the maximum setting.

Never do anything  by halves.

 

When I looked again at the B&W image just now, I decided it would be more interesting cropped – which you can also do with Picasa. Appliqué and stitch perhaps? I think there aren’t enough shades of grey to do anything  subtle with blackwork.

 

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did, Just wish I had the time/could persuade myself to do something with them – the muse has departed again, although I am getting a lot of knitting done. Oh, and playing with photo editing software…