Category Archives: Flora

Creating an orb in Photoshop

I use Photoshop CS6 for most of my photo editing work — adding contrast, sharpening, correcting exposure, bringing back highlights, cropping, and so much more.

Once I finish editing, though, it’s fun to find out what other things Photoshop can do.

To me, Photoshop filters are the most fun, and recently I learned how to create an interesting orb, like this:

Not everything makes a good orb. The more little things in the picture, the better looking the orb will be.

Here’s how to do it, step by step.

Open your picture and crop it to a square, or a ratio of 1:1. Click on the crop icon. In your crop options bar, it probably says “Ratio.” Click on that and change it to 1:1 (Square). Your crop marks will move to the center of the image to create a square from your picture. You can move the crop area around if you want it somewhere else. (Click on the image below for a larger image.)

Next, click on Filter ► Distort ► Polar Coordinates…. ► Polar to Rectangular ► Okay

My flower now looks like this:

That creates an interesting item in and of itself, but we’re going to go further.

Now click on Image ► Image Rotation ► Flip Canvas Vertical. That gives me this:

Again, you could stop there and have something interesting. We’re still going further, though!

Click on Filter ► Distort ► Polar Coordinates…. ► Rectangular to Polar ► Okay.

That gives you an orb!

If you don’t crop your picture to a square, you won’t get an orb. Instead, if your picture is wider than it is tall, you’ll get an oval on its side. If your picture is taller than it is wide, you’ll get an oval on end.

Have fun!

Lastly, guess who is in this orb?

I’m Zoey the Cool Cat,
and I would approve this post
if I wasn’t dreaming of catching birds.

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

Posted in Adobe, Digital photo editing, Flora, Mother & Father Nature, Photos

23 Comments

Tags: adobe photoshop cs6, create an orb in Photoshop, digital photo editing, Photoshop distort filter, photoshop filters

Friday Flower Fiesta (5/9/13) — The best for the best

May 10

Posted by Russel Ray Photos

I would like to dedicate this Friday Flower Fiesta to two people:

First, to the memory of Wendy Stone, 41, of Riverside, who was killed in an automobile accident on Tuesday, April 23. Wendy was riding her motorcycle northbound on Interstate 15 at Indian Truck Trail (halfway between Corona and Lake Elsinore) when a truck going southbound veered into the center divider, hit the K-rail, jumped it, and flew into the northbound lanes. Debris from the K-rail hit Wendy Stone, throwing her from her motorcycle and killing her; the motorcycle traveled another 1,000 yards (that’s over half a mile!) before crashing.

Second, to Harvey Oshrin. Harvey was driving a Mercedes in the northbound lanes in front of Wendy that was destroyed when the truck landed on it. Harvey is my mother-in-law’s boyfriend. Here is Harvey’s car after the crash:

Harvey spent a few days in the hospital due to injuries but he’s at home now and apparently feeling well enough to go out this afternoon with me, Jim, and Joan (my mother-in-law) for a Mother’s Day meal at Famous Dave’s in Vista, best barbecue in San Diego County.

I’m a firm believer that when it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go. If it’s not your time to go, you can say prayers of thanks to God, thank modern medicine, call it a miracle, whatever. All it means to me is that it wasn’t your time to go. If you look at Harvey’s car, the passenger area is completely destroyed. That’s normally where Joan sits. She wasn’t with Harvey that day, so it obviously wasn’t her time to go.

Here’s an NBC web site report on the crash. I think it’s interesting that the last line of the article says, “The drivers of the truck and sedan were not seriously injured.” Granted, any injury won’t be as serious as death, but personally I think a few days in the hospital due to injuries would warrant calling them serious injuries. Of course, NBC didn’t know how serious the injuries were at the time they posted the article.

Readers who have been with me a long time might recognize the following pictures. All have been used in Friday Flower Fiestas before. I consider them some of my best and I use them here for two of the best people in my life: Joan and Harvey.

Angel’s trumpet

California poppy

Bird of Paradise

Iris

Aloe

Protea

Columbine

Pansy

Rose

Clivia

Aloe

Iris

Blue Agave

Tulips

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

Posted in Photos, Friday Flower Fiesta, Flora

20 Comments

Tags: flora, friday flower fiesta, flower pictures, angel's trumpet, wendy stone, harvey oshrin, california poppy picture, bird of paradise picture, iris picture, aloe picture, protea picture, columbine picture, pansy picture, rose picture, clivia picture, blue agave picture, tulip picture

Look! Up in the air! It’s a silk floss tree!

May 9

Posted by Russel Ray Photos

When I was a young boy, I was always tripping. Didn’t matter what I was walking on or what kind of shoes I had on, or no shoes. If I walked more than ten steps, I was going to trip. I had bruised knees, torn jeans (my wise old grandmother despised torn jeans), bloody elbows and hands….

My youngest uncle (still living at home and going to college) used to blame my tripping on my feet…. feet and tripping…. Hmmm. Logical…. He was reading “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” at the time, and one of the illustrations in the book was of Ichabod Crane, a tall, gangly man with huge feet. He took to calling me Ichabod Crane because of my tall (6’3″), skinny body (150 pounds), and my huge feet (size 11). What my uncle did to me might be considered verbal abuse in today’s world, but I survived.

My wise old grandmother blamed my tripping on me not looking at where I was going. She would always say, “Pick up your feet! Get your nose out of the air! Look down to see what you’re about to step on! It might be a rattlesnake!”

Alas, I have solved the tripping problem by picking up my feet and looking down to see what I was about to step on.

However, when I’m out and about, like at the Zoo or SeaWorld, I do like to look up often to see what’s above me, what’s sitting in the tree and about to poop on me. The fun part about doing that is that if you stand there long enough looking up, people will gather round you and look up, too. They don’t want to miss anything! If only I could train a bird to sit up there and wait until everyone is looking up and then, when I look down, let go….!

The other day I was at SeaWorld. I looked up and saw a huge (probably size 11) cotton ball hanging in the tree:

That’s a seed pod of the silk floss tree (Ceiba speciosa). I was quite familiar with the silk floss tree’s flowers but had never seen its seed pods, especially bursting open with cotton like that.

I stood there gazing upward and took a few more pictures of the seed pods in different stages of growth:

By the time I finished snapping my pictures, I had a crowd of about 15 or 20 people standing around me looking up to see what kind of animal (at SeaWorld!) was up in the tree that I was taking pictures of. One lady asked me and I told her, “Just the tree and the huge seed pods.” At that point, everyone left in disappointment. Folks, it’s okay to appreciate flora at a fauna park, or fauna at a botanical garden!

Here is the flower of the silk floss tree:

The flowers look similar to some orchids, and I have heard it called an orchid tree although I could find no sources that use that name. Maybe it’s just a San Diego thing.

The silk floss tree is native to South America. It is drought resistant (which explains why we have lots of them here in San Diego) but grows very rapidly, even in spurts, when water is plentiful. The trunk of the tree has huge (probably size 11) thorns on it which store water for those droughts:

At the entrance to the San Diego Zoo, just to the left of Flamingo Lagoon, is a huge (way bigger than size 11) silk floss tree that looks really strange during the winter when there are no leaves or flowers, just a tree full of seed pods, looking like this:

If you really want to have some fun with people and this tree, skip Flamingo Lagoon and go stand under this tree and look up. In the afternoon when the Zoo is really busy, you can get a hundred or more people standing around you looking up. It’s a lot of fun!

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

Posted in Flora, Mother & Father Nature, My wise old grandmother, Photos, SeaWorld, SNIPPETS, Zoo & Safari Park

18 Comments

Tags: san diego zoo, seaword san diego, silk floss tree

Friday Flower Fiesta — Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden

May 3

Posted by Russel Ray Photos

Located at 2525 Park Boulevard, the Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden in Balboa Park is an All America Rose Selection Display Garden with over 2,500 roses representing 200 varieties on three acres.

Park your car in the southeast corner or the far east row of the San Diego Zoo parking lot. Those areas are well away from the Zoo entrance and are often available. Walk across the street and south towards the rose garden. The first thing you’ll see is a beautiful tree dressed all in pink.

View Larger Map

Roses bloom from March through December, but April and May are the best months with roses at their peak beauty. Let me know which rose (or rose picture) you like best.

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

Posted in Flora, Friday Flower Fiesta, Mother & Father Nature, Photos

21 Comments

Tags: balboa park pictures, inez grant parker memorial rose garden san diego, rose pictures, san diego pictures

Developed by Monsanto?

Apr 30

Posted by Russel Ray Photos

I developed most of my gardening skills courtesy of my wise old grandmother. Our home in Kingsville, Texas, had about an acre of land surrounding it, and the land was full of flowers, trees, and grass. Here’s what the house looked like a few months ago courtesy of Google Street View:

The two oaks in front of the house were planted by the one and only me in 1970 after Hurricane Celia destroyed all the trees in our yard. Apparently all of the flowers, bushes, and shrubs are gone. She had mostly oleanders, poinsettias, crowns of thorns, snapdragons, pansies, and petunias.

All around the back patio, though, she had strawberry plants. I used to love picking strawberries (and eating them) as they ripened. Every time I buy strawberries at the store, I think back to the days of my youth when I would pick strawberries off of our own little strawberry plants. The strawberries of 40 years ago were small, certainly nothing like the strawberries we get here in San Diego from Oxnard and Watsonville (California). The strawberries I bought today look like this:

These strawberries come from Oxnard. I bought them at a Walmart Superstore, four pounds for just $5.98. The smallest one is about the size of a lime, and the largest is about the size of a lemon. And they are sweet! Sweet, sweet, sweet! A little chocoloate syrup, or some vanilla ice cream, and it’s heaven on earth!

I’m wondering, though, if these strawberries were developed by Monsanto……lol

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

Posted in Flora, Mother & Father Nature, My wise old grandmother, Photos

7 Comments

Tags: oxnard strawberries, watsonville strawberries

Here’s looking at you!

Apr 23

Posted by Russel Ray Photos

It was a bright, sunny, and warm afternoon today, so I went down to Balboa Park to check out the cactus garden since cacti love bright, sunny, warm days. Officially the cactus garden is called the Desert Garden and is located at 2525 Park Boulevard, just north of the Inez Parker Grant Memorial Rose Garden (everyone knows where the roses are!).

Throughout Balboa Park, but particularly in the Rose Garden and the Desert Garden, the flower displays are stunning right now. I’ll feature the Rose Garden in this week’s Friday Flower Fiesta.

The Desert Garden has more than 1,300 plants from around the world on 2½ acres. One of the interesting cactus species in the Desert Garden is the Golden Barrel Cactus (Echinopsis grusonii).

In Texas we called it the “horse crippler” because if you were riding in the boondocks and your horse misstepped on a Golden Barrel Cactus, it could easily be crippled. Unfortunately, the Golden Barrel Cactus, while extremely popular in city cactus gardens, is rare and critically endangered in the wild.

Small, yellow flowers appear on the crown of the cactus but usually only after the plant is about twenty years old.

Look back at the first picture and notice that the plant appears to be leaning. It’s not. It’s simply exhibiting phototropism, a plant characteristic first named heliotropism by A.P. de Candolle in 1832. If you grow plants indoors, phototropism is what causes the plants to grow towards a light source, and why most gardening books tell you to place a plant light directly above your plants or to rotate them regularly so that they will grow evenly.

The Golden Barrel Cactus is one of the best plants to observe phototropism. If you were to plant one in a pot and let it grow for a few months, it would appear to lean towards the sun. You could then rotate it 180° and in another couple of months it would be leaning towards the sun again.

In extreme cases — and I know of one place here — younger Golden Barrel Cacti planted where they get up to twelve hours of sun each day, can be observed facing east for the morning sun and south for the midday sun, ultimately facing west as the sun sets.

Here is another picture from the Desert Garden showing several of these cacti leaning west, towards the setting sun:

I walked around so that I appeared to be in front of them. It appeared that they were looking at me, reminding me of the movie Casablanca. “Here’s looking at you!”

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

Posted in Did you know?, Flora, Mother & Father Nature, Photos

11 Comments

Tags: balboa park in san diego, golden barrel cactus, heliotropism, phototropism

Friday Flower Fiesta (4-19-13) — Peace

Apr 19

Posted by Russel Ray Photos

I have many flaws but one that has always bothered me is that I have never had much capacity to express sympathy and sorrow.

I remember when my granddad died in 1978. He had suffered through about 70 heart attacks during the previous ten years but kept on going…. Until the day that I told him I was officially going to graduate from Texas A&M University. He died in his sleep that night. I was a serious juvenile delinquent when he and grandma adopted me, and I think he knew that I would be alright once I graduated from college.

When I attended the funeral — I was 23 — everyone except me was crying. I tried to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. Granddad was 69. At the time I thought he had lived a long life; he was dead. Move on.

Same thing happened in 1983 when my best friend died of leukemia when he was just 25.

I finally cried on 9/11, and the tears have been flowing again since Monday.

For today’s Friday Flower Fiesta, I want to share nothing but predominantly white flowers, the color of peace, and I want to dedicate this Friday Flower Fiesta to the 264 injured in the Boston Marathon bombing; the three dead: Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell, and Lingzi Lu; and Sean Collier, the MIT officer, killed last night.

Peace Lily