This past weekend I visited the Berkeley (Univ. of Calif. - “Cal”) Botanic Garden.
They have gardens representing all parts of the world, and plant life endemic to California.
These are some shots of mine from one of the two herb gardens - one oriented to Eastern herbs, one to western herbs.
There’s a close-up of the Achyranthes (whose root is to help cure swollen throats - supposedly), a wider view of the same garden plot with more of the flowers, and a shot of the Giant Knotweed Rhizome (which is supposed to help cure weakness & more).
All the natural beauty we saw in the garden looked like art to me. It was reinvigorating to be out in it. So, for the knotweed image (with the red stalks), I composited in a picture of an artist with palette & brush to imply that she was painting the (actual) plants to create such stunning colors and textures. It’s not an artist painting on a canvas…
I used a mixture of Topaz DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI and Studio (classic!) in my processing. My workspace is always Photoshop (2022) - Win 10. That’s where I created the composite, used the Topaz plugins and did the finishing and resizing (downsized) work.
The acoustics in the Berkeley hills carried from the nearby campus. Fun to see the excited young people in gowns come to take pics after the ceremony!