Dog Ahoy!

Tyler had an exciting adventure over the weekend; he took a little boat ride around the pool. At first he was a little wary of the boat. Then once he got in, he tried drinking the pool water. He settled down, though, and seemed to enjoy his little trip.

After returning to land, Tyler went back to his usual routine of running around the edge of the pool until he ends up sliding into the water and needs to be rescued . . .

 

which  happened about fifteen minutes later.

Photoshop to the Rescue

My interest in learning Photoshop began about seven years ago. I wanted to see if it was possible to salvage some old photos which were in less than perfect condition. Here's an example:

It's quite discolored from age, has a tear in the top right corner, and has many creases, some of which are very visible. After some Photoshop magic, here's an edited version of the image:

The original image is about 4.5 x 2.5 inches. I cropped some of the background out to better focus on the subject; plus, cropping eliminated the torn corner very easily. The photo still isn't perfect by any means. Removing every single crease individually is just about impossible. I blurred the background slightly to soften the creases instead of trying to clone them out. The trade-off is that those parts of the photo have now lost some detail, but I didn't think that they were as vital as, say, someone's face. Unfortunately, because the original photo is on the small side, there isn't much that can be done to zoom in on the subject without causing pixelation.

Depending on the sentimental value of the photo, though, sometimes a slightly fuzzy background is a small price to pay as opposed to the picture falling further into a state of disrepair.

Epcot Flower & Garden Festival

We were psyched to go to the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival a few weeks ago. Armed with our cameras, we were greeted at the park by heavy clouds and drizzle:

Although it was nice not to have the sun beating down us, these weren't ideal conditions for taking pictures. I adjusted the color temperature for the next two photos in Lightroom to remove some of the blue color cast from the cloudy day:

Of course, the sun popped out just as we were about to leave. More photos to
come . . . .

Just Hangin' Around

These little guys set up camp on my rocking chairs for about a week.  They usually sat together on the same chair, but of course when I went outside with the camera, they decided to spend some time apart.

 

I finally managed to snag a picture of them sitting together, but as you can see, I couldn't get a clear shot of both of them.  Not having a good zoom lens, I had to creep up on them all stalker-like so that they wouldn't fly away.   Surprisingly, the sound of the lens focusing didn't scare them; it was me getting a tad too close that made them take off.

FUN FACT: I used Photoshop to digitally remove the rather large mess that they had left behind.  Ick.

Happy Easter

Floral Fun

These are the roses in front of Lee's house. I love them because they are so pretty, so I'm always taking pictures of them. Here are a couple of different shots taken at different angles. 

Spring Blooms

I really love hibiscus flowers.  They're pretty hardy weather-wise and seem to be able to withstand my total lack of a green thumb.  Of course, they also make great photography subjects.  These are the kinds of photo ops which make me wish that I owned a macro lens. 

I took these pictures on a windy day and thought it would be fun to see what I'd get with a slow shutter speed (0.5 seconds).  Here's the ghostly result: