*#@** Photoshop!

Aargh,

i am looking at Wild Prairie Farm on line and the colours i am seeing... Well lets just say, i know some of these photos spent a while in photoshop before being posted. Catalogs too! It used to be you could spot the phonies, but the graphics department at these places are getting so much better. I know that some touchup needs to be done on pics, but come on! In the spirit of fairness, there should at least be some fine print telling us the colours have been altered, intensified or worse.

You're singing everyone's song and no one will disagree with you on that. Some places are better known for true colors. Wild Prairie is one of the worst. There are a couple of other 'overly creative busy artists' out there in Iris land. They are selling some pretty wild iris out there, aren't they? :-) or more properly :-(

I always use the plantfiles before I buy an iris. Thank goodness I know that it's there.

Blue J Iris has an interesting photo policy. Everywhere they have more than one photo, they put two. I think that it's fascinating.
http://www.bluejiris.com/

Maybe people have some ideas about some growers that do have good photos.

Agreed tombaak! I'm wondering what my Pride Of Ireland is gonna really look like! We were sold on the catalog color, of course it can't be that green, can it?

(Nice site Doss - good prices)

Well, depends on how green is 'that green'. I think not very.

http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/24218/

Nope...........looks very pale yellow to me. Sigh......well, this one is tagged and will not bloom this year. Will wait for next year to see.

Sorry, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Check out what you're buying here next time - we'd be glad to help you. And now is the time to shop.

Don't be sorry Doss, I appreciate the heads up!

I do belive I ordered it from Wayside..........funny......how some of their plants are true to photo (like the Starship Enterprise) and others.........well.......... My husband will be disappointed. But I'll find him something else in that green color. Maybe not an Iris but something. Wayside is hit and miss I guess.

I've been wondering about those "green" tulips myself...

Tom - I have no idea how much the lesson cost you. I wanted a certain daylily and had the "just have to have it" feeling at $100. Out of boredom (before DG came into my life) I looked it up on 3 or 4 sites: big time disappointment. Saved $100. and learned a lot.

My husband is a computer nerd, so i know better. I've been burned a time or two, nothing too expensive. I am just frustrated trying to shop. This spring i am in the fabulous position of having an extra $150 to buy new iris! I don't want to waste a penny of it.

I've spent a lot of time with my Sutton's catalog :)

Oh how nice tombaak! Please share what you decide on!

I am so excited, i never have money like that to spend just for fun. We took a home equity loan out to buy a wheelchair accessible van (our 5 year old uses a power chair) and my (brilliant) husband thought we should all get a little "guilt free" spending money. I tend to be a bit of a miser, my husband is an eighth grade teacher and i am a stay at home mom, we have two girls, Satori who is 5 and Sydney who is 2. So, I am fantastic at spending money, i just don't spend it on myself. So it is going to be great to just go a bit nuts on plants.

For sure!! Have fun picking and choosing. That is the best part! Well, maybe the best part is standing in front of a bud 'waiting' for her to open up. LOL! I am known to stand in front of a bud everyday coaxing her along.............

Congrats on the van! Satori must be thrilled!

Yeah, she loves it! We are so much more mobile now. We are even taking a big road trip this summer to LA. She wants to see the treasures of King Tut more than anything. Should be fun, 2 kids in a car for 12 hours...

Well..........having done the 2 kids in the car for 12 hours (when we moved from CA to WA) I can tell ya............it's all about the games! We survived on a cooler of soda, snacks, songs and the ever loved NINTENDO .

Share your stories of King Tut, please. I am not familiar with it?

Now I'm starting to realize we have hi-jacked the photoshop thread........sorry, oops......( I tend to get chatty!) tombaak - we can continue this in e-mail if ya wish!

Back to *)(*&*^&***& photoshop...............

Can one really hijack their own thread?

nope......just realized I strayed from the original convo............so it was me! LOL

Wow. I'm glad I stumbled on this thread... I'm a non-traditional student Majoring in Graphic Design and Print Technology, and it never occurred to me that the photos in the catalogs or online were "enhanced". SILLY ME!!! lol. Now that its in the forefront of my mind I can see it all over the place. Thanks for the reality check!
Wait until I mention this to my instructor. ...

This message was edited Jun 15, 2005 12:28 PM

I've seen PofI in person recently and it is a disappointing sickly yellow (it looks like it just needs to spew). I'm told there isn't a true green but I've seen one that is getting closer. It's an SDB called Tu Tu Teal. Of course, in certain lights Sea Monster has an olive green fall. But there isn't a true emerald or mint green out there that I've ever seen -- it's all an illusion.

Ditto double ditto the sentiments on the photoshop issues.

Roni

Ooops forgot to show you tu tu teal.

phkat - what's a 'nontraditional' student? Sounds interesting. Live and learn. Let us know what your instructor says will you?

Is Tu Tu Teal an Intermediate?

Doss Tu Tu Teal is a SDB. Sorry forgot to note that, didn't I.

That's OK. It's hard to tell from the top. I should have guessed a SDB anyway. I'm going to try a few this year. They aren't supposed to do so well in our hot weather. We'll see.

Well, here's my two cents worth:

My goal in the next 4-5 years is to run my own iris farm. One of the vows I've made is that I won't be touching up ANY of my photos because I've been burned on that myself...and badly.

I don't believe that people should pay anything, if it's $2 or $50 for an iris that isn't represented correctly!

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now, because I realize I'm preaching to the choir.....

Oh, please touch up photos if they need it. I certainly have had to do it. The dark ones are so hard to photograph well (I still am having trouble with those, and if you do it so that it makes the color closer to what you're looking at, it's great. It's just when they go fooling with the color balance that it really gets weird. I think that if I were taking photos for the web though I would use a white box. You can get them really cheap and they work like those auto sun shades and are nylon. You cut the bottom out of them and then you can get the white balance perfect and colors come out true. I probably should invest the $30 bucks but I would have to either cut the flowers, buy a more expensive larger one or have someone stand there and hold the box for me. Although to think of it, I'd just have to get a cardboard box and cut out each end to hold up the white box. Hmmmmmm.

Unfortunately some cameras make it necessary to adjust photos in editing software to try to approximate what you actually have blooming in the garden. My camera, for instance, is miserable with yellows and darks. It turns yellows gold and darks much lighter than they should be. It's aggravating, because then I have to fool around with color balance in my software, working from my non-existent memory unless I go cut a flower and bring it in to sit beside my computer monitor while I work (where it looks different under artificial light than it does under natural sunlight, anyway). Sometimes I'll be certain a flower is a certain hue and work in my software to achieve it, only to go out into the garden later and find my memory for the color was waaaay off. Makes me want to tear my hair out!

Laurie

My husband is a graphics guy and i fully understand the need for retouching. It is the "green" iris, "blue" roses, and "black" peonies that chap my (already chapped) gardeners hide. :) :)

Laurie you made me laugh. One of my favorite Iris, 'Impressionist' is this vivid raspberry color when it's in the garden and you bring it in the house and it goes dead brown. It clearly needs the sun on it to be it's beautiful self. It would take a lot of photoshop to make it that ugly brown color.

Well, I guess I should clarify. I agree with touching photos up to make them more true to color. What I don't agree with is making the iris brighter, darker, more glowing etc. than it really is.

Right on!!!! Or a whole different color or impossible colors or................

Thanks for caring. That's what you were really saying and I appreciate it.

I agree. Touch up for true color is honest and fine.
Touch up so that one is deceived, say into thinking they're getting a satiny vivid red and really its a flat boring red, would definitely be a no no in my book.
A "non-traditional student" is a nice way of saying "way older than most of the youngsters right out of high school heading into college. :-) At our college, I think the technical definition is anyone that has been out of school, before college, for 5 or more years. But the general population at the college simplifies it by just figuring that its us older folks. (I'll be 50 in January.)

I've been having an amusing email conversation with Keith Keppel today about one of his past introductions, 'Nectar'. I purchased this cv from a small but reputable commercial source in 1991 and never thought twice about the accuracy of its ID until I happened upon another pic of it online yesterday that wasn't even close to mine. I then referred to the official registration description which is, as is typical for KK, so heavily laden with indecipherable color names based on one of the color charts that I couldn't make heads or tails out of it. Still confused and uncertain about the true identity of my 'Nectar', I emailed my photo to KK for verification one way or the other.

Ever the teacher, Keith reminded me that irises can and do look very different under different growing conditions, including variances in width of plicata bands, color nuances, and even beard color. I emailed him links to two different 'Nectar' pics online as well as my own, and he emailed me with descriptions of 'Nectar' pics in Cooley's and older Schreiner's catalogs as well as his own. Every single one is different - some more different than others. Some pics make the iris look like a self, others like a plic. There was only one pic KK thought probably wasn't 'Nectar' at all.

Relative to the accuracy of my own pic, Keith said, "Mine seem a little more on the yellow side, but not to the point of being definitely wrong." Hmm. Was that a yes or a no? LOL!

Laurie

I think that was a nice way of trying to stay neutral. LOL. Sorta diplomatic like.

Roni