Cardinals and Elements

Wild Bird Wednesday

The male Northern Cardinal is an eye-catching bird with his bright red feathers. I chose him as the subject for my first test of Photoshop Elements, a program that I have not used in years. I've been using Adobe Photoshop instead, a more advanced software which has many great features. 

At some point, I had to start paying a monthly subscription fee. I don’t remember when that was because I used Photoshop CS6 for a long time, but Adobe wanted everyone to pay the monthly fee, so when I got a new laptop several years ago, I was not able to install CS6. Rather than struggle with a non-supported software, I installed the subscription-based version of Photoshop. It seemed worthwhile because I used Photoshop almost every day.

Until I didn’t. I got an iPhone that took very good photos and found that I could simply crop them using my built-in photos app. I stopped using Photoshop every day, and eventually found I was only using it about once a week.

I hesitated and procrastinated about canceling my subscription but finally I did. I purchased Photoshop’s little cousin, Elements. It does not require a subscription, just a one-time payment that’s pretty reasonable. I tried it out today and found it does most of what Photoshop did, except  not as smoothly. It does have a long list of filters available. I hadn’t seen the “Comics” one in Photoshop  so I tried it here.

The vertical picture is one that I finished with a poster edge filter. I probably won’t use that a lot; I was experimenting.

Overall, I think Elements is going to be fine for my purposes.

Charlie’s Mid-April Update

Hi, it's me again. Don't worry, I am a friendly dog.

Do you like my new vest? It is more comfortable than the tactical harnesses that I tried. I was able to chew through their straps and Mom threw them away.

Marie came to see me this morning. She brought me a creamy treat in a cup. Yum! She took me for a walk and later went with us to the  dog park. There was a little girl who scared me a little by yelling “Puppy puppy!” She was friendly but loud.

Lynn came this afternoon. It’s a little confusing because they say they are sisters but they call my mom their mom. Does that mean they are my sisters? They don’t look like me at all.

Birds visit our yard. So far I have not gotten close enough to smell them. 

My kitty friend came back. We didn’t see it for several days and then it just appeared on the deck. I hope it will let me get close to it again. It only has three legs, so it walks differently than I do.

What's Your Superpower?

The September theme for City Daily Photo is 'My Superpower." I wondered what I should post for this. I used to think my superpower was patience, but as I grow older I have less time to be patient. Fortunately, I have another superpower. 

Sometimes I am invisible. Perhaps not literally, but as an ordinary-looking white woman, I often go unnoticed. 

Perhaps you looked at this picture of an automobile showroom and disn't see me. That's okay, it's an illustration, a Photoshop creation. Do you see me now?

 

Robin Framed and Filtered

 

Photo of the Year 2021

 But first, Happy New Year!

According to tradition and the City Daily Photo theme for this first day of the year, it is time to post a Photo of the Year for 2021. Since this year's activities were influenced again by a global pandemic, I'm going with a Covid-coping theme. So here I am at the vaccination site, looking a bit ragged from the stresses and limitations of the preceding months. 

Yes, I altered the photo a bit. For those who don't recognize the meme I added, that's Senator Bernie Sanders with the striped mittens. He was photographed that way at the inauguration of Joe Biden.

This is not the best photo I've posted this year but it is pertinent. The year was a tough one. We had the threat of a serious disease, an attempt at overthrowing the government, a series of natural disasters in various places that were probably caused by climate change, and other disturbing news stories. For a while it looked like the pandemic was being controlled but that shifted recently as a variant swept across the world. 

In spite of all the uncertainty, let's survive and continue to care for each other. Peace!

Bird, Squirrel, Dog.

Whatever caused the problem with posting pictures yesterday seems to be fixed.

Saturday Critters / I'd Rather Be Birdin'

The red fellow is a northern cardinal. 

The gray squirrel is shown in grayscale, commonly called black and white. 

I saw the dog looking out of a car. I used Photoshop to add painterly texture and a vignette. 

Caturday Art

Outlook Not So Clear

 The Future?

City Daily Photo Theme Day

"The future's not ours to see,

Que sera, sera." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a trail cam photo from my files. I chose it for the sense of looking into an unknown future.

The late day sun made a flare on the lens. I darkened it in Photoshop. 

This is the first time I've used Photoshop in months. I had deleted it because Adobe kept "improving" it and the program became so big it was competing with my photos for storage. My hard drive was running out of space and I saw constant warnings. After I deleted Photoshop and some other things, I began the tedious process of moving folders to a second backup drive (I don't trust having just one) and then deleting them. (I don't trust cloud storage either, although I use it selectively.) 

I still have my Creative Cloud subscription, although I tried canceling it at one point but they offered me a few months for free. I've been using other programs but I missed the versatility of Photoshop, so today I downloaded the new version. I see that it takes more RAM and is not recommended for computers older than 2015. Mine is from 2015 so we shall see how it goes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here we have another trail cam picture, taken late in the day.

Wild Bird Wednesday

Back to the Future

As I get ready to move to a smaller home, I know I will miss the geese and other wildlife, to say nothing of our view of the lake and mountains. But part of preparing for the future is being realistic about needs as we grow older. 

This picture of geese coming ashore is from a few days ago. I took it from the window.

The View from Lone Pine Drive

Timberville, Virginia

Sometimes I drive down a country road just to see what's there. I spotted some antique cars across from a storefront church. Faith Lutheran Church of the Valley was founded in 2010. 

Inspired Sunday.

As I drove farther from Route 211, I passed several farms.

I took the last picture through a car window. The glass has an aqua tint which I did not completely eliminate using "Pixlr." Right now I am avoiding Photoshop because it uses so much memory on my laptop. 

For me barns, see Tom's blog.

Bedeviled by Technology... and Geese.

Here it is Saturday and I had to struggle to crop my critter photos due to technical problems. My laptop has memory problems and the app I usually use to fix that was not doing much to clear space. I tried to contact them yesterday but wound up conversing with a bot, which I found so frustrating that I deleted my account. That did not solve my swap disk problem with Photoshop, of course, so I am temporarily using Pixlr online. 

So, I hope you enjoy the deer, squirrel, and birds today.

Here we see a red-winged blackbird and a downy woodpecker. 

Saturday Critters / I'd Rather Be Birdin'

I've written about the graylag geese a couple of times lately. It's hilarious that they come up and knock on the door, but it is not funny when they get aggressive in the yard. The meanest one pecked me and left a bruise on my ankle! 

They leave a mess in front of the door too. I got a plastic owl, put sand in it to keep it from blowing over, and placed it in front of the glass doors. Here we see how well it works. Yes, they were not at all concerned about it. 

 

A Duck Out of Water

City Daily Photo Theme Day. 

It's April 1st. What more can I say?

A Little Celebration.

Wild Bird Wednesday
in 
My Corner of the World.

The altered pictures show a starling and a male cardinal. 

Next we see a goldfinch and a female cardinal. I have no idea what she's saying. ;-)

Spring is Coming!

Here it is Friday again! Allow me to catch up on some recent pictures. 

Yesterday I went to the chiropractor in Woodstock and too my lunch to W. O. Riley Park. From here you can see the Massanutten Range in the distance.

Black and White / Willy Nilly Friday.

Friday Bliss / Garden Affair / Floral Friday

 

 Suddenly we are seeing flowers, especially daffodils. It's funny how the first signs of a new season excite me. 

Our trees aren't green yet, though. I took the picture of the community lake a few days ago from a boat launch spot by the dam.

Skywatch / Weekend Reflection

Last week I went to the dermatologist and she called on Tuesday with biopsy results: I have a basal cell carcinoma on my back. They'll remove the rest of the spot and prognosis is good. It may have been caused by sunburn many years ago.

I first went to the dermatologist in December but this spot was discovered on a recent follow-up visit. Do see a dermatologist if you have concerns about your skin, regardless of the pandemic. This office was very careful and I did not run into any other patients.

By the way, the photo was modified using an app called Illus. I did not keep it after the trial period because it was not as versatile as I hoped.

Next we see a tree along Skyline Drive that my friend Dawn calls the "pig tree." I modified this image in Photoshop to bring out the pig face. 

 

  Today I participated in a virtual meeting with the Friends of Seven Bends State Park Committee. 

For now, our weather has been very nice. This man was kayaking in Strasburg yesterday. Enjoy it; it won't last. Winter is not quite done with us. 

Hungry Critters, Snowy Backdrop.

Most of our snow has melted but I love bird photos with a snowy background, so I'm showing pictures from when there was still snow in our yard, starting with a blue jay.

Saturday Critters / I'd Rather Be Birdin'

Squirrels are cute but voracious. They show up at my feeders in the morning and eat all they can, spilling seed all over the ground. Sometimes I see four at a time. Fortunately they like to go home early and usually disappear by 4 o'clock, leaving the feeders to the birds. 

The cute bird on the suet feeder is a Carolina wren. 

There is still snow in the mountains and on north-facing hills. I saw this man and dog walking at Dickey Ridge in Shenandoah National Park. The park just reopened to traffic a few days ago. They close Skyline Drive when it is too icy to drive safely or when there are trees blocking the road. Up there, temperatures are colder and winds are stronger. 

Caturday: Today's final image features a cat from my archives. I experimented with Photoshop filters and layers on this. 
 

Sweet Critters

For Valentine's Day, I thought I'd start with bright red cardinal, followed by some soft fuzzy critters.

Saturday Critters / I'd Rather Be Birdin'

Black and White Weekend

Alpacas are often raised for their soft wool. They are smaller than llamas. 

Our next critter is a sweet toy hippo. 

It's been a while since I posted a kitty for Caturday. I used a Cut-out filter on this, doubly so on the background.

The sparrow kindly posed for a moment. I believe it is a white-throated sparrow. 

Today's final bird is a red-bellied woodpecker.  In this pose, you can see why it got that name.