some beauties just flowering

[Neil]

3 more from me

Dactylorhiza purpurella, try as I may I could not get the colour right on this it is in fact much more purple. Does anyone know how to take a photo, on a digital camera to get the purple showing. I have tried photoshop to correct it but to now avail.

Dactylorhiza praetermissa this is only 3 years old the other 3 in the pot have not flowered.

Dactylorhiza incarnata subsp.coccinea seems not as tall as it was last year!

[Tony Willis]

I went back to Shap yesterday and the Listera ovata were in full flower. I have only seen single plants before but here they were in clumps. Sorry about the quality of the picture which I took on my phone-a first for me!

[David Nicholson]

Very long wire on your phone Tony

[mark smyth]

I saw 100s of Listera today but none in groups and all suffering from the drought. All orchids at the site I visited where short and wilting. The warden was saying he has never seen the site look so brown

This is a Dactylorhiza ?fuchsii that grows in a trough at my back door. Its very tall and smells so good but I cant place the smell.

The best scented orchid in the garden is Cruickshanks dark leaf. Good enough to smell every day. I wish I could describe the scent

[mark smyth]

The orchids above are 26 inches / 66cm tall

[KentGardener]

Thanks for showing the pictures Graham.  I have been pondering buying that one, but keep wondering if it is really blue.

[daveyp1970]

John do you overwinter your bletilla in a greenhouse?

[goofy]

postage deleted, sorry

[KentGardener]

John do you overwinter your bletilla in a greenhouse?

Hi Davey

No.  All are planted in the open garden.

[WimB]

hey,
just flowering nicely as every year, about 60 cm tall.

Dactylorhiza Eskimo Nell

enjoy.
cheers

Very Beautiful, thanks for showing.

[Maren]

"Does anyone know how to take a photo, on a digital camera to get the purple showing. I have tried photoshop to correct it but to now avail."

Hi, this can be very tricky on a digital camera. Look for Shooting Modes, some cameras have them, such as: Portrait, children, fireworks, landscape, etc. Mine has a mode called 'Underwater'. It gives a warmer colour result than the others, and I use it a lot.

[Slug Killer]

'Does anyone know how to take a photo, on a digital camera to get the purple showing. I have tried photoshop to correct it but to now avail'

Take auto white balance off if you can and set white balance yourself if your camera allows you to do this (all DSLR will). Refer to manual on how to do it.

If using a DSLR, shoot in RAW & Jpeg mode as it's far easier to adjust white balance correction using RAW material in photoshop. If you can, place a small bit of white paper on the edges of your photo that can be cropped out later after white balance has been adjusted using eye dropper to select white area in Raw picture manager. If there is a white area in the photo, just use the eye dropper on this area. Below is a quick example of a Calanthe I took deliberately setting the wrong white balance. Hope it's of some help. You can also play with the drop down menu that says white balance on the right of the screen.

This is only available for people using camera's that allow you to shoot RAW files.

[Slug Killer]

Does anyone know what Calanthe this is?

[Pascal B]

Dactylorhiza purpurella, try as I may I could not get the colour right on this it is in fact much more purple. Does anyone know how to take a photo, on a digital camera to get the purple showing. I have tried photoshop to correct it but to now avail.

You can alter the white balance but that effects the entire picture and moves the overall colour either to the blue side (cool) or yellow side (warm). I am not sure if Photoshop Elements has the same option but in Photoshop CS you can make minor adjustments on JPEG through "image-> adjustments-> selective color". This will show the below option and by choosing "magenta" for purple flowers and by adding more magenta and taking away some yellow you will increase the purple appearance. To what extent you need to do it to get true to nature is upto you. But be aware that every computerscreen that is not calibrated to a standard colour profile will show colors differently. Also be aware that it will affect all purple in the picture.

[Slug Killer]

Yes the white balance will change the whole picture but if its wrong in the first place and the colours are not correct, then the whole image needs changing. Get it right at the start and you will avoid having the wrong colours. White balance works by determine what is white and then adjusting all other colours to what it thinks will be correct based on the white setting. If the white setting is wrong, then everything else will be wrong. The problem with most DSLR and compacts that it is quite often wrong in AWB mode.

If the Dact purpurella should have been more purple then the rest of the picture is also wrong based on the white balance (colour balance setting). Problem taking photo's outside is that the light is constantly changing from one photo to the next and it's better to shoot everything on a dull overcast day.

Please also remember that the camera needs to be able to obtain a white balance from something. Next two pictures were taken one after another with no light changes or setting changes. The only difference is that the angle was changed in order for the camera to see a piece of white paper and balance from it. Quite a difference.