Friday, October 17, 2008

Sky Watch Friday - Lake and sunset

Last Saturday we went for a drive looking for fall foliage. We didn't find a lot of color, but did find some beautiful skies and reflections. The lake is in Cunningham Falls State Park and the sunset was taken near our house. More pictures of the lake are on Marianne's blog and my original blog.



Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Messing with PhotoShop

Original

Above is a picture of impatiens and sedum in our yard that I took on October 13. (There is a close-up of the impatiens bud on my Project 365 blog.) I decided to experiment with Photoshop enhancements for adjusting color. (I have Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 that came with either my scanner or camera). For the first four photos below I used the Enhance -> Adjust Color -> Hue/Saturation feature. For the fifth, I used the Enhance -> Adjust Brightness/Contrast-> Adjust Levels feature. The enhancements were made to copies of the original photo. Only one enhancement was done to each photo below. All photos were resized to 800 pixels wide and saved in a JPG file of about 100KB.

Adjusting the hue results in shifting the colors around the color wheel. Saturation adjusts the purity of the color. The samples below were done to demonstrate the range that is possible. Fine-tuning a photo can bring it to the color that the eye saw, but the camera could not exactly duplicate. Adjusting levels changes the intensity of the shadows and highlights. Large adjustments can make unusual and striking photos of every day objects.

Hue set to -90 (red to blue shift)

Hue set to -180 (red to green shift)

Hue set to +90 (red to yellow shift)

Saturation set to +100

Levels RGB: Input set to 50, .30 235 Output 0 255 (not changed)

Saturday, October 11, 2008

PhotoHunt - Lazy cats

Our two cats are not hunters! Buster perfers to stretch out with Maxine, while Zoey naps in a dining room chair.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Sky Watch Friday - Wired skies

Wires were buried in most of the historic section of Frederick City years ago. Since the 1970's electric, phone, TV and Internet wiring in new housing developments was put underground. But there are a lot of places where wiring still hangs on poles. The first four shots were taken back in September on the same day as the ones in my last SWF. The sunset below was shot last Sunday.




Monday, October 6, 2008

Bridges Between - Us and Frederick

The Monocacy river winds its way through Frederick County from Pennsylvania in the north to the Potomac River in the south, with many bridges along its path. The steel truss bridge above is one that I crossed almost daily for 25 years until I retired last year. It is the main crossing of the Monocacy River for the communities to the northeast of the city. About 10 years ago, the road was widened to four lanes and a new concrete span was built for eastbound traffic. For a much older bridge over the Monocacy, see my Legore Bridge post.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

PhotoHunt - Sad hibiscus

As the blooming season ends, flowers normally take on a forlorn look. But the hibiscus actually looks down right sad with the first cool weather. For a cheerful hibiscus, take a peek a Quilly's post.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Sky Watch Friday - Cool skies

The lazy, hazy days of summer have departed, leaving us with cooler temperatures, some rain and beautiful skies. Here are some samples of Frederick skies during the week. For other weather-related views, visit my Lew's Pics posts of Tuesday and Wednesday.