I finally got back to the Blue Lotus Water Gardens after 3 years. I know every year I would talk about going back, but I just didn’t get there. However, on Boxing Day, my friend Suzzanna and I finally went with my mum in tow as well.
My mother had never been before, and we were going to take her another year, but I can’t remember what happened that meant we didn’t go. It might have been last year, and she was sick, so didn’t come down for Christmas. It was good to take her this time.
Unfortunately, it was too early for most of the lotus and water lilies, and not a lot was out. They did give us free passes to go back, which was nice. I am hoping to get back there before the end of the season, which is the 19th of April.
Here are a few I managed to get.
All the images were processed with ON1 Photo RAW 2026.
I am finding a few problems with ON1, though, specifically that some of the features I really liked have been removed. So many of my presets now don’t work. I do hope they fix that.
Love the light in these
Thank you Nora.
Interesting post. I love your flower pictures.
I have tried ON1 and while it is an impressive program I don’t like all aspects of the user interface.
Not to say that Photoshop has become any better. More complex in my opinion, in particular if you don’t use it daily.
Plus I hate the recent subscription price increase.
Affinity 2 has some good aspects, though the in-depth pixel processing, for example the light/ shadow adjustments are inferior to Photoshop.
Affinity Studio has been designed for CAVA users. I did subscribe, since I can use some of the Cava features and it is cheaper, all up than Adobe. The super resolution/ clean up feature is ok for in-screen and some publication work. But very slow and if you work with scanned, analog images, not always very accurate.
As replacement for Lightroom I have selected EXCIRE photo. It works well and the automatic image key-wording is not bad. The program has no image editor though and you need to use a link to other programs you have installed. A bit cumbersome. But otherwise not bad and NO subscription, though you pay for new versions, if you want them. EXCIRE is a German brand, so governed by EU laws.
If I have time, I may write more about the program.
Norbert
Thank you Norbert.
I don’t think there is any user interface that is fantastic, I guess we just get used to them. I’m slowly getting to the point where I just know where everything is.
When they decided to start charging for the extras with Affinity, I gave up using it. I like AI for somethings and I’m not going to pay for that when I can get it with the other programs I have. Photoshop isn’t that much more at this stage so I am going to stick with it and ON1.
I’ve never heard of EXCIRE, but I never really used Lr so I have never really looked for a replacement.
beautiful
Thanks Sue.
Beautiful Leanne! They have stopped planting the Lotus garden in our park in Sacramento. I miss it.
Thank you Anne, what a shame, this place is privately owned, so in their interest to keep it going.
Real beauties!
Thanks Sandy.
I love water lilies and glad at least some were out
Me too Beth on both counts, thank you.
So beautiful!
Thank you Pepper.
Beautiful.
Thank you Lynette.