Young buck and blustery weather.

The weather in the Ilwaco area was true to form for this time of year at the beach. Windy and rainy were the themes for a lot of our weekend. Of course, that is the main reason I go there this time of year. I love that weather. I love standing out on the beach in that cold, blustery stuff. I have  no idea why, but I do. Here are some pictures taken during the blustery part of the 12th of November. These were mostly taken in Cape Disappointment State Park from the Benson Beach area. 

We saw a young buck when we headed back into the main part of the camp. We wanted to look at the cabins in case we might be interested in renting a couple of them this summer and taking our grandkids to the beach with us.There was a young buck in the yard. It was hard to get his little antlers to show up because he kept moving toward the fence. I also found a way to fix the eyes in these pictures. Most photo programs have red-eye removal, but for some reason it doesn't work on the bright yellow or white that often appears when I take pictures of animals and forget to disable my flash. I discovered that if I use the "remove blemish" tool, it works pretty good. 

Why I love Picnik!

Picnik is a photo editing program that is easy and fun to use. You can use it for free if you like or you can pay for it, like I do. I pay for it because I like the fun creative features and they are not all available if you use it for free.
So, anyway...
I found the pictures of the two little froggies that insisted on showering with Becky when we were at the ocean. It was difficult to take good pictures of them inside because the bathroom walls were very bright yellow! That is why I only took two pictures of them together.

Here are the original photos and with them are the edited versions that I edited through Picnik. So much fun!

Baseball

I'm not a big fan of sports and seldom, if ever, watch them on television, but I used to enjoy going to the Kingdome to watch a game of baseball. I used to also enjoy playing softball. My ex-husband and I were on a team together when we worked at the post office. It was a lot of fun.
I saw this softball sitting on our sidewalk while playing with my camera so I took a shot of it and then played with it on the computer. It's interesting what you can do with photo programs these days.

April Fool's Day

It would be nice if I had some witty little prank to play in my blog today, but I don't. I'm not feeling particularly witty these days and I'm a little tired to boot! Today I am going to finish painting the ceiling, clean out the bird cages and clean up the painting stuff. I'm not sure if I'm going to start on the walls or not. I think I will have to save it for next week. I still have pies to make for Sunday and I'm working days on Sunday so I have to do that Saturday morning. The theme for this month is BIG.

So, here is my offering for today.

I've been learning how to use features in my photo editing software and I made this picture from two others.



But as you can see, I made Mom and the polar bear TOO BIG! and I can't figure out how to make them smaller. I also can't figure out how to place them where I want them. So I'm still studying the options and reading the book that came with the program. I took a small webinar, but REALLY! I should have taken notes, because I can't remember all the steps he used. Maybe they will offer it again.

Happy April Fool's Day. I hope all your pranks are fun ones!

Call me crazy!

I've decided to blog the daily April blog.
I need one more thing to do.
Actually, I seem to have more time these days and can enjoy spending my time working on the computer. I'm getting all my photo stuff organized and learning my photo editing software. I can do all the basics, but I want to understand more about the more complicated tasks in my programs. I am also working on learning more about the other programs I want to master, like Excel and video editing. I have some projects I want to do for people and I want to know all the features I have available to me.
I'm excited about the response to some of my photo artwork and hope to move forward in that area. I'm also looking forward to spring so I can get upstairs and get my studio set up and running. I have a lot to do that has to wait until nicer weather, so I'm trying to get all this preliminary stuff done while it's still too cold and wet to get to the nitty-gritty of what needs to be done out there.
Ok...I need to go make myself some lunch and don't want to rush it like I usually do. It's my Friday! Can't wait for my weekend. I have finally decided where the laundry room is going and can now begin the process of getting the rest of the areas done. I have to get an estimate for the support beam that needs replacing before I can build the walls, but in the meantime I am finally going to REALLY paint the living room ceiling and hopefully will have time to do the walls, too.

Photo editing software.

I took these photos of my daughter's family last year and decided I wanted to take the background out of them. I tried a couple of different features on my photo program. The first one was to "erase" the background.

Here is the original:


Here is my "erased" copy. Obviously, I need a lot more work and finesse to use this feature. Or maybe less things to erase. I'm not steady enough, I think.


The second method was to use the cloning tool, in which you "clone" different parts of the original to fill over the background you didn't want. The original picture had a bookcase, boxes, the birdcages, and stuff sitting by the door. I need more practice at this one, too, but it was fun playing with it.


The twin on the left doesn't really have curly hair, but I cloned her hair from either Rhyan or Isaac, I can't remember. I used the edge of the table to make the floor trim between the wall and the rug. I used a "cutout" plant to put on the table. It's not bad for a first try.