Are those REAL colors or have you been doing some photoshopping?

Summer would be endless if you came to visit us soon! (uh and stayed for four or five months)

Is a four-limbed starfish as lucky as a four-leafed clover? For someone other than the starfish, that is.

http://www.angryflower.com/jollys.html

Alas, Jolly starfish...we hardly knew ye.

No photoshopping at all (other than the resizing and compressing for the Web, I mean) -- the colors were in fact rather breathtaking and the light on the beach that day was excellent, a kind of partially-cloudy day with plenty of sun but not too much glare. The only reason I was able to capture the vibrant purples and oranges this well was because I was not using our camera but my mother-in-law's much nicer model.

The lonely purple fellow was apparently being shunned for his Prince-homage hue; the clustered millions were all wine-maroon and/or orange.

There were some sea anemones in the pools as well, kind of a dullish mint-green color. And of course the rocks are covered in mussels. The tide pools at Cannon beach are still pretty sand-inundated from a cycle of big winter storms some time ago, so there wasn't much else to see, although I had been hoping to spot some urchins or crabs.

http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/projects/rocky/crabs.html
http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/projects/rocky/s_purpuratus.html