Elements+ add on

Oh what fun it is to play...la la la! An add-on for pse called elements+ from simplephotoshop.com available here which I found thru photokaboom.com makes available a channel mixer in any version of elements. and a bunch of other stuff I haven't played with yet.
In other news, I got 4 Ansel Adams books @ the library today, The Camera, The Negative, The Print and The Eloquent Light.
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Hay Bales and Trees Acrylic Landscape Painting

Hey look, I made a painting from one of my recent photographs taken near the Equestrian Center in Lake California. This is 8" x10" acrylic on multimedia artboard, which I used for the first time and quite like! Fast and fun work using Chroma Interactive Acrylics.

Shasta Daisies in Shingletown

I went to Shingletown with my Sis yesterday and the fields were full of Shasta daisies. Then I found a tutorial on using a displacement map to add a custom border in Photoshop that works in Elements 9. Double the foto fun!

Mama Osprey

Better light this a.m. for capturing flying birds; also a lot of wind made her hover rather than swoop right in. Seems she is bringing a twig for the nest, tho the kids are getting pretty big now. These are the best photos I have gotten so far of osprey.

Using the circular polarizer

I got some practice in with the Hoya circular polarizer on the 18-135 mm lens. With the lens turned 90 degrees from the sun, turn the filter a little bit at a time with your finger until you see a difference in the image in the viewfinder or lcd. yay! it works.

It's a rainy day...

We had a rainy, haily afternoon in Cottonwood. I was so excited to get photos of the rapidly changing weather, including a double rainbow! But, umm, I changed my lens to the 18-135 zoom so I could get some wide angle shots and did not notice that the IS switch was turned to off. And my keys were in the house, my tripod in the truck so I did not use it either; consequently many shots were too blurry. Luckily photography is not my bread and buttah...

Sutter Buttes and Tomatoes

Sutter Buttes from Arbuckle, hazy atmosphere. In the foreground, a field of tomatoes; don't know what the middleground trees are. Shot this on the way home from Davis where I saw my college sophomore son in a play called "Dinner". Life is abundant.

Sunset in orange and purple

Taken from the N campground trail. I used to call this Cottonwood Creek, but I believe it is a part of the Sacto River which splits and rejoins itself.

Cottonwood Seeds

Cotton on the tree. I have not taken the good lens off my camera yet; it takes such beautiful photos. There are some wide-angle shots I will go back to get later. Reading Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Book 4, he suggests higher sharpening of the raw files and I am trying it.



 Canon gear, t3i+100mm f2.8L macro.

Cloud rainbow

Now and then we have these circular rainbows in the clouds; my sis hollered @ me to come out and get a photo. Also see the cotton bits floating here and there.

Sundown in Lake California

Sweet! from across the street, handheld, the Canon 100mm f2.8 IS macro lens. How I love this lens; I wanna marry it, yep. It takes beautiful landscape photos.

Not the Solar Eclipse

Sadly I did not have the glasses or solar filter for looking @ the sun and taking photos. It never seemed dark enough to risk it; I need my eyes! I love my camera! So I took some trios of photos with different exposures at the airstrip a few blocks away to process as hdr. I found a free program and instructions at wikihow while perusing an hdr flickr group and here is my first attempt. The cloud actually looks like a jet over the little plane on the airstrip.

Clouds in Red Bluff

I love clouds, and taking photos of them, too.

Osprey Mom

I was focused on the nest; camera on tripod, when the mom did a flyby to check on the kids. She didn't land, just flew back towards the river, hunting I suppose. Shot near my home in Lake California.

Porch lites

Some of our solar nite lites. About a 30 sec exposure to develop the starry look.

Last Class Shoot Red Bluff

Met with the photo class last eve in Red Bluff to do a night shoot. Bob Grace gave us lots of support and told me how to do light trails, what fun! Will definitely do more of this...
The class is over, but has given my photography journey a great start!

Sunset in Lake California 05-09-12

 I shot this last night @ the entrance pond; thanks to Bob Grace's photo class, I am developing some confidence with image capture. This old dog CAN learn! Arf, arf!

sundown and barb wire

Took some photos this eve down by the entrance to Lake California. Having a lot of fun learning to use my Canon t3i.

Homework in Red Bluff

My photography class is nearly over; next Sat is our final shoot. The homework assignment was to do a recon of the area in downtown Red Bluff and I got it done last night. I am particularly fond of window reflections photos; this was taken across from the post office.

My shot at the supermoon

I rented a
sigma 70-200 lens from Crown Camera to shoot the supermoon last night. I had gone out the night before to practice shooting the moon and realized my canon 18-135 just wasn't going to give me enough zoom.  Fyi the Sigma ex apo dg 70-200 f2.8 macro hsm lens weighs 3 lbs! fortunately it came with a tripod collar, a uv filter and a nice case and bonus! Crown Cam is not open on Sunday so I get to keep it until Monday for the reasonable price of $20! So, yeah, I will do some more shooting with it today. This is definitely the best image I have ever shot of the moon, tho I am struggling with post processing. I have Photoshop Elements 9, Canon's Digital Photo Professional that came with my camera and I downloaded a trial of Lightroom 4. Lr will probably be the winner, but I don't get how it works yet...

Photos from Lake California

Evening fun in the grass at the airpark in Lake California.

Cottonwood sculpture

 One of the metal sculptures that line our main drag in Cottonwood. I call him "Cal"; don't know if he has another name. There are some "dogies" and a little dog, too. My photography class is going out on an early a.m. shoot on Saturday which I am looking forward to but a little nervous about.

foto fun @ the creek

Yesterday I went to nearby Cottonwood Creek to practice shooting water.  So nice to have a couple of days of good weather; this spring has been rainy, gray and dreary. Reminded me of my childhood days to go play by the creek; but now I have a good camera to go with ;>)

picmonkey.com

I used a new online picture editor called picmonkey.com to process this ordinary photo of tulips into something different.  Heard about this site thru picnik.com which is soon closing.

teehee it's me

I set the timer and went around in front of the lens; focus was incorrect but once processed looks ok. Got the free version of Perfect Effects and used framing and toning from their presets. Too much fun!

Blended photos

Found some great instructions at photokaboom.com to blend photos in myriad ways. The site owner is a photog teacher in nyc who gives well-detailed instructions for ps elements. My kind of fun!

Rain in the hills around Lake California

Yes, I love the dimensional feeling you can get when adding vignetting; tho I have learned in photography class that this is a fault of shadow from the lens hood or similar. As an effect to bring the center forward it works well from an artistic standpoint imho. This photo is of a recent stormy day here in Lake California; I was shooting from the east side of the air strip.

Clouds in Lake California

I love to see those wonderful big puffy clouds; this scene was shot near the airstrip in Lake California where big sky views are possible. The Canon t3i is quite enjoyable to use!

Crabapple blossoms with the new Canon t3i

I bought a new camera, a Canon t3i, my first dslr! And I'm taking a 6 week photography class @ the Red Bluff community center to help me learn to use it. This week the assignment is to learn how to set the TV and AV modes. Yay! I get it! [Pats self on head]
Here is a shot of our crabapple tree in bloom; thankfully the rain took a break today so I went out to shoot a bit.

flowering quince with bokeh

if i set the "scene" to "macro" and focus on something close it sometimes comes out nice like this.

Soft sky with branches photo

I think branches against the sky create a lovely pattern. This photo has been processed with the colored pencil filter in pse 9 to give it softness; razor sharp focus and brilliant color is not always preferable to me.

Nature dried flower

A natural dried weed flower found on a walk. I used pse 9 to add vignetting; I think it brings out the subject nicely. My camera, a Nikon coolpix, takes pix @ a 16:9 ratio, this does not translate fluidly into print sizes but would look good on my monitor. This crop is ok as a 6x4". I wonder if photo labs will add a paper size that works better with the 16:9 aspect ratio?

I am lichen this one

lichen on a rock today. so decorative, almost like a pattern on fabric.

shadow me with leaves

or could be called "Shadowbox". I call it expressive. makes me want to see more ;^)

clouds are fun, too

Oooh more fun with pse9 and Perfect Photo Suite 6, with Pandora radio for sound.

love puddles love taking photos love playing in photo software love a monday off love Pandora radio love this photo I took today.

fun with my photos and photoshop elements and Perfect photo Suite 6. Addictive but legal.

Moonrise backyard

Fun fiddling with fotos. tho technically a poor photo, I like the way it looks.

Nice abstract look at reflections in our Lake California, down by the boat launch/clubhouse area.

yay! photoshop elements 9 has layer masks. i wanted more dimension on the birds and wires so used some photoshop magic, but then it seemed so typically "birds on the wires"that i used a layer mask to erase one section of the filtered effect and liked the result. i just got a new wacom create tablet and pse 9 came with it. my creative juices have been stirred; another yay!

sun in a puddle

weather in a puddle, sun and clouds with concrete. trying to see more abstractly and create an interesting photo. added warming filter in photoshop and cropped to 8x5", an atypical proportion.

A little breeze

A chilly breeze and some overcast clouds from the backporch on a sat aft. been trying to photograph "weather" recently. used the soft focus adjustment in picasa 3.

jan 26 park and ride

went for the b/w pattern against late aft clouds.

A lovely winter walk

Took my camera for a walk this eve. then did some processing in picnik and picasa just for FUN!

Zucchini leaves

From my garden, some impressive leaves! wow, really simple to add the picture from Picasa web albums. I am using google/picasa for my online storage of photos.

Drawn Inside 1, gradation of Value

Attempted to post using IE9 but publish post button was not working, so I am trying Chrome.

After watching a Grant Fuller video on http://artistnetwork.tv I have re-realized that drawing can have lost and found edges, too, like painting. It was fun to do and I don't know why I don't do more!