Experimenting With Photoshop Filters

This was fun...  I think these turned out so cool!!

All photos taken with my Nikon D3000 using telephoto lens to soften the background and enhance detail.

Above is a pot of Iris on a flat headstone.  Taken in Sacramento Old City Cemetery in March 2015.

I used Photoshop Elements 11 and make a duplicate background layer and then added a watercolor filter.  I then changed the opacity on the watercolor layer to about 60%...basically until I felt enough of the back ground was through to add detail.

Next, I added a Layer Mask to the duplicate filter.  Using the brush feature,  I went over certain areas with the brush to further bring through the background to enhance shading and add more depth.

I like it!

Next up is...

This is another photo from my Sacramento Old City Cemetery visit.  

This one I did very similar to the first.  

I created a duplicate background layer.  This time I chose the Pastels filter and manipulated it with the sliders until it looked interesting to me.  I did not make it at all transparent this time.  

I added the Layer Mask to the duplicate layer and then used the brush again. This time, I went over the entire Robin to bring it through and make it clearer.  I left just a bare edge with the Pastel filter; I've learned the hard way when editing photos that if you err on the side of grabbing part of the background, it's very noticeable.

So Pretty!!

Last for today is this coy horse...

I loved this horse when I was out walking about Gibson Ranch County Park one day.  I have another photo (that I will post below) in color and he is just a gorgeous, different looking equine.  

After I had taken a couple photos (I always take at least 4 of the same subject haha), he turned a little and angled his head like this.  Posing for me, but playing coy.  However, there was one problem.  He has a slightly unattractive redness outlining his eye.  It was way more noticeable when he tilted his head like this.  But loving the pose, I tried to save the photo.  

I chose the Sketch filter and then selected Pen and Ink.  There are four color choices and I chose black (obviously).  Again, I just played around with the settings until I got it where I loved it.  

This was the easiest to edit.

Here is the same horse, in living color. 

xoxo

Spring Fever! How About Some Flowers!

Mood Music While We Look At Pretty Flowers!

Elvis Presley...me mam's favorite singer.  Not bad! Easy on the eyes and the ears.  Hopefully my flower pictures will be as easy to look at.  

All taken at the Sacramento Zoo and William Land Park

We'll start with my favorite color, PURPLE!

 Mom's favorite...Iris.  We had purple iris in our front yard every year. 

Williamland Park is a large park in Sacramento which has a zoo, Fairytale Town - which is an awesome place to take youngsters, Funderland - a small carnival with rides for youngsters, a golf course, baseball diamonds, a duck pond, an outdoor amphitheater, lots of room for volleyball, frisbee, etc.  It is, in a word, Wonderful.  

Beside the parking lot for the zoo & Fairytale Town is a "prettyish kind of a little wilderness".  I love it there.  About 2/3 of these pictures were taken there, with the rest taken at the zoo.

This crazy rooster was lording it up over the pedestrians...He didn't really chase anyone, but he was certainly intimidating at times.

 Love this shot of the amphitheater benches with the wilderness in the background. 

 Cool branches down by the duck pond.

How about some SUNRISE COLORS!  Reds & oranges.

I see that there were lots of white flowers... So delicate and pretty.

 So much bokeh!!  Love it and so happy!

  

Sometimes the foliage is just as beautiful as the flowers but gets overlooked beside their flashier cousins. Case in point the purple leaves above with the creamy white flower.

And these next three beauties...

What goes better with green than gold!?!  #LetsGoOakland #Athletics

 How about green and gold and polkadots and spikes!  This plant is so punk rock. 

And this bee loved it too!!  How very stripey.

Okay, time to calm it down a little...we'll go from baseball punk to PINK!

This is actually a tree against the grey, cloudy sky.

 Sacramento used to be called The Camellia Capital.  We still have a lot of these gorgeous girls around, thank goodness. 

I just loved these grey branches that made such an interesting and delightful frame and background for the sparse pink flowers and leaves. 

And last but not least, outside the entrance to the zoo, I noticed a bush with really tiny pink flowers.  I went over to take another look and discovered how marvelous they are.  

It was funny...a lot of people were standing there, waiting for the light to change so we could cross the street and no one was paying attention to the bush.  There were a few people looking at the flowers that were planted around it and even taking some pictures.

After I started trying to get my perfect shot of these tiny, lovely flowers, several people walked over to see what I was looking at.  After I got my shot and was walking away, I heard one guy say "Wow, those are fantastic!  I'm glad I saw her looking at them!"

So one last piece of advice.  No matter how cliched you think it might be...stop and look at the flowers.  

Just watch out for Carol.

#TWD

xoxo 

Sacramento Zoo Animals Part III 2/7/15 Patterns! Patterns! Patterns!

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened."

~~ Anatole France

"Giraffes are fairytale animals, almost heraldic - as if from the land of fables.  They have extremely beautiful faces, huge eyes, very sensitive nostrils, and oh!  blue tongues!"
~~ Joanna Lumley

 The baby. 

"An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language." ~~ Martin Buber

"I asked the zebra,
Are you black with white stripes?
Or white with black stripes?

And the zebra asked me,
Are you good with bad habits?
Or are you bad with good habits?
Are you noisy with quiet times?
Or are you quiet with noisy times?

Are you happy with sad days?
Or are you sad with happy days?
Are you neat with some sloppy ways?
Or are you sloppy with some neat ways?

And on and on and on and on
And on and on he went.

I'll never ask a zebra
About stripes
Again."

~~Shel Silverstein "A Light in the Attic"

Beep Beep!  (It's the Greater American Roadrunner)

"Animals are more than ever a test of our character, of mankind's capacity for empathy and for decent, honorable conduct and faithful stewardship.

We are called to treat them with kindness, not because they have rights or power or some claim to equality, but in a sense because they don't.  Because they all stand unequal and powerless before us." 
~~Matthew Scully

"Let us remember that animals are not mere resources for human consumption.

They are splendid beings in their own right, who have evolved alongside us as co-inheritors of all the beauty and abundance of life on this planet."  ~~Marc Bekoff

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

~~Mahatma Gandhi

xoxo