I love the internet, I really do. Seriously, I rely on it for all sorts of things. None of this is new information for you, savvy reader, but here's something that drives me absolutely bananas (you know it's serious because I don't even like bananas!)Here's a screen shot of Helleborus 'Onyx odyssey' from an internet image search: The majority of the photos above are a black or slatey near black color. From a collection like that, the black-flower-hopeful would expect that this plant was a true black or at least so ridiculously dark flowering that it didn't matter.I recognize that cameras and monitors vary in their abilities to accurately represent color, I have no issue there. My issue is more of an honor-code type thing. Below are some photos I took of this same cultivar in my old apartment patio:I find it important to photograph plants and flowers in the shade and the sun, and with different kinds of backgrounds and other things in the shot like ambiguous planty backgrounds and also my own hand. The camera automatically makes adjustments depending on what is in the picture - and then if I were to adjust the color in Photoshop, there are algorithms that make assumptions about what the color was supposed to be.For my design work, the internet serves as a great starting point and a place to see as many different images of the same plant as I possibly can. However, I've learned to mentally visualize colors of plants and flowers from web searches, and also to take into account the quality of the photos and the lighting.I try to grow as many different plants as I can at home (more on that later) so that I can have the best possible understanding of a plant's color and habit. I keep an extensive collection of photos that I've personally taken so I can track the same plant under as many light and growing conditions as possible, and so that I have a mind's eye recollection of each plant.My complaint, if you can really call it that, is that clients can find color-adjusted and completely unrealistic photos online, and expect that their plants will look just like that. Plants are amazing, gorgeous, living things.... but they're not always the supermodels (also usually photoshopped) that some catalogs would have us believe. Every once in a while, they become mere mortals like the rest of us. Beautiful in their own right, but not exactly as depicted.So please - don't be taken in by a great photo. Check them all. Consider before you fall in love if you're enamored with the image or the plant itself. We all deserve to be loved for who we are, sans photoshop.