23 Oct 15. Something very special for today and something I haven't done for over 40 years so a little bit of history is in order. When I began seriously learning photography in the very early 70s I took the New York School of Photography course, a 2 years correspondence program that included MANY assignments, one of which was to take a photograph of something in noon light, and then photograph it again in morning light, evening light, full electronic flash, white flash bulb, blue flash bulb, under fluorescent light, and under tungsten light. We were supposed to submit each without the printer compensating for the light (color) shifts in printing. The print house I was using at the time was so impressed that they asked to make a copy for display in the store to show the effects of lighting to their customers. Jan made me a set of Raggedy Ann & Andy dolls specifically to use for the shots. They were dressed in red, blue, green, cyan, magenta, yellow, white, gray, and black materials. It was a fun experiment. I started out today with the idea of sharing a shot of our Chinese Lantern plant (Physalis alkekengi)and took a lot of photos of it as well as a couple of our Princess plant, (Tibouchina urvillena), one of my all time favorites plants, and then got a neat idea for both the Chinese Lantern as well as the Princess. So the Lantern will have to wait for 7 or 8 days - hint - as we look at the princess tonight. It being macro / close up Friday we'll start with close up of just one blossom on the princess plant. Then we'll add another 26 smaller images all around it. Just as I did with the Andy & Ann shots, I'm placing versions of the flower all around but on this occasion versions that have been modified by blending modes. Over the last few years you have heard me say every now and then that I employed a blending mode to achieve a certain look. In today's submission you can see the effects of all 26 blending modes. I've numbered each modified image in a clockwise direction starting form the top. The blending modes link I've provided will give you a complete description of what they actually do and when you combine that with today's submission you should have a very good understanding of them. The modes are 0) normal - the unnumbered center image); 1) dissolve; 2) darken; 3) multiply; 4) color burn; 5) linear burn; 6) darker color; 7) lighten; 8) screen; 9) color dodge; 10) Linear dodge; 11) lighter color; 12) overlay; soft light; 14) hard light; 15) vivid light; 16) linear light; 17) pin light; 18) hard mix; 19) difference; 20) exclusion; 21) subtract; 22) divide; 23) hue; 24) saturation; 25)color; and 26) luminosity. Zero and 1 due little at all; 2 - 6 darken the image; 7 - 11 lighten the image; 12-18 affect the contrast; 19 - 20 invert colors; 21 - 22 cancel out colors; and 23 -26 affect component colors. Of all these I employ only numbers 3, 8, 12, and 23- 26. So now when you read me say something about using a blending mode or blending layer you'll know to what it is I'm referring. The base image was adjusted for max tonality, give a little pruning (cropping), and then a small amount of micro contrast adjustment. I then made a new layer and solarized it (inverted the colors) and used that for my build of the 26 blend mode thumbnails that surround the main image. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f / 9 with fill flash.