February Crocuses

 By February 10th the crocuses were looking pretty good.

 more of the mauve crocuses.  The crocuses are multiplying in the crocus field on the boulevard planting, next to the street.

 The yellow ones are the first to bloom.  I need a few more of them to fill in the early show.

 These special two toned ones ... the name of which I have lost and forgotten... look very good.  the white grass thing should have been taken out, but I just liked the curiosity factor of it.

 By Feb. 10th the daffodils wsere just beginning to open.  They are now in full bloom in great clumps in the strip between our driveways.  There are bouquets on the dining room table.

The helebores have been in bloom for weeks, now.  They are long lasting.  I need to learn how to use them in bouquets to show them off to the best advantage.  The dark ones and the white ones are now in bloom in the moss garden by the back steps.

These photos were taken with the Canon SX40.  I have a few more photos to upload from this camera.  But since about the 20th of Feb. I have traded up to the SX60 that shoots in RAW format, and is a bit higher resolution images.  It has been an adventure to learn how to open the CR2  (RAW photos in my old Photoshop CS5 that does not support newer cameras.  I found the DNG converter, and this solves the problem.  I really hope that the cameras of all brands can go to a standard like DNG for the RAW format.  It is a total pain to have to update everything to use each new version of any camera that they develop.  The DNG converter I have now is a free, stand alone software.  I have it set to save the original CR2 file when it converts to DNG.  This file is larger than the original, CR2 RAW, because it contains all the original data plue the conversion... I think.  I have not followed this in the forums, as they all seem to be saying that the DNG conversion loses some data.  This loss is not important, I understand, because it simply contains the XMP data needed for any camera model to use their own conversion of the RAW files.  Its a total pigs mess to try to understand this.  We need a standard designation for the RAW files.  I think I saw a comment where Pentax has already gone to this DNG standard.  Can the rest be far behind?  At any rate, I am happy with my DNG converter and the Camera Raw in my old PS CS5.  The originals will always be available with the way I have my DNG saving them for extraction anytime.  At least I hope that is the way it works.  Just to be on the safe side, I shoot in RAW + Jpeg, for now.  It helps to have a separate drive to save data, and a drive to operate the computer O/S.  It is interesting to watch the machine change gears to work in the data drive from the operating drive.  It is not really fast to make this gear shift, and I wonder why.  But I really do not mind, as everything is far too fast now anyway.  We need time to smell the roses.
My techie is brilliant. :} 

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Posted By Blogger to My Garden at 3/01/2015 10:42:00 PM