Long Pause

I am in Austin, Texas the remainder of this week.  I will probably not post anything new until next week.  Stay tuned though, I do a have a couple of BBQ joints on my list to visit and I always have photo ops available to post later.   There is supposed to be ice and snow back home in Arkansas on Thursday and Friday, so I may not be able to get home on Saturday. Hmmmm....it could get interesting before the week is over.  Have a great week all.

Ruby Tuesday

Last week I posted several photos of birds that had come to my bird feeder following a recent snow fall.  This week I am featuring the star of the show, the piliated woodpecker.  You will notice that this bird is large.  He is significantly larger than a blue jay, but not quite as large as a black bird.  There are a pair of them in the woods behind the house.  They are never very far apart, but one is very camera shy while the other doesn't seem to mind feeding while I photograph him.  It does help to have a telephoto lens for these shots.  I have my 50-500mm lens set on 400mm.  I can then crop them closer once I download the originals.

Friday Thoughts and Sky Photos

It's been cold, snowy, rainy, and pretty depressing around here this past month.  I thought it was time to drag out a photo of happier days.  This was taken in mid-August at one of my favorite places close to home.

In a recent Wordless Wednesday post I submitted a "solarized" photo.  Several people thought that it was pretty cool and a couple of you wondered how it was done.  I have posted a solarized photo as my blog banner photo this week as well. The truth is, it's extremely simple.  Here is how it works.
First of all, I am using Photoshop Elements 7.  It will do virtually anything that I need done without the expense of the full version of Photoshop, in fact,  it's about $500.00 cheaper.  I don't know if other photo editing programs have this solarizing feature or not, but it is built into PSE.

Now, pick a photo that you want to use this technique on.  I will use the one from my blog header.  It is a very brightly colored image to start with, so it will provide lots of fun colors when finished. This sea dragon can be found in the lagoon at Downtown Disney in Orlando, FL.  He's actually made out of Lego's!
Next I cropped him into a square in order to reduce the size of the image file.  Now comes the magic.
Click on the "Enhance" tab and go to "Adjust Color".  In that pull down menu, click on "Adjust Color Curves".  The photo will be displayed with several options.  The last option is solarize.  Click on it and here is what will happen.

Pretty cool, huh!  This is all there is to solarizing a photo.  Now, if you don't like these colors, you can take this another step further.  Click on Enhance/Adjust Color and go to "Hue and Saturation".  By sliding those bars to the left or right, you will change the photo dramatically.  Here is what happens when you set the Hue at +25 and the Saturation at -25.

Here is what happens when you set the Hue at -100 and the Saturation at +50.

I think that the settings for my banner photo were Hue -180 and Saturation +100.  Here is one last example.  As you can see, the possibilities are endless.  Once again, I will emphasize, If I can do this, anyone can do this.

So much for "Fun With PhotoShop Elements", it's time to wrap this up and play the inspirational song for this week. Unless the Lord returns first, there will come a day when each of us will leave this world and step into eternity.  For those who have heard the call of God, repented of their sin, sought the forgiveness of the Father, and invited Christ into their life, they will enter into a place prepared just for them.  When our work in done here, we will be able to "Go Rest High On That Mountain."  Enjoy.

Thursday Interlude

I can't help it.  I love this group and I want to share them with you.  Enjoy.

Wordless Wednesday

Reaching for the Sun

Ruby Tuesday

 

We got a couple of inches on snow on January 3, and I filled my bird feeder.  It didn't take long for the rubies of the forest to appear.  I even decided to turn one of them into a Ruby Tuesday badge.
On another note, if yo're interested in how I created the banner photo for this blog, come back Friday and I'll share the techniques with you.

Miscellaneous Notes

1.  Friday night I created a new banner for my blog.  Come back Friday and I'll tell you what I did.  You won't believe how simple it was to create.
2.  Before you say you don't like Bluegrass or Gospel music, give this a listen.  It's the Isaacs family. Enjoy.

Wordless Wednesday

Ruby Tuesday

Click on badge to view other participants.

Santa's little helper

Friday Thoughts & Sky Photos

Click on photo to enlarge.

January Sunset

This was the sight that greeted me as I passed through Pea Ridge, Arkansas this past Tuesday evening as I headed home from work.  I just had to pull over and take the shot.

The Christmas lights have been taken down and put away for another year.  The tree has been boxed up and stored.  Well, the tree isn't down yet because it's been too cold to cart it outside and into the garage for storage.  The photos of Chrstmas' past have gone back into the drawer and another holiday season has come to a close.  The Sooners won the Sun Bowl.  That's a good beginning to the new year.  Sitting here watching the Fiesta Bowl, it is now official...TCU has replaced Oregon as the owners of the ugliest uniforms in college football.  Somebody call the folks at "What Not To Wear".

Sorry Horned Frog fans, but these are just bad looking uni's!

Of course with Oregon, there are just soooo many bad uniforms to pick from!  These are just a few of their seemingly endless options of bad taste.

Okay, that's enough sports fun for the day, on to the inspirational song.  I'm going to start the year with my favorite southern gospel group, Ernie Hasse and Signature Sound Quartet.  The song is "Trying to Get a Glimpse".  Enjoy.

Wordless Wednesday

This gift left the oldest of the grandcrew speechless!  It's her first laptop.

Ruby Tuesday

The Christmas Story

One of the Christmas traditions in our house is to read the Christmas story from the second chapter of Luke. In the past, I have read the scripture verses, we prayed and gave thanks to our God for his most precious gift and then opened our packages.  The past couple of years I am passing the torch to the grandcrew.  Above is the youngest grand daughter.  She read the first few verses then passed th book to her next older sister and finally to the oldest grand daughter to finish the reading.  It was a very good evening.

The middle grand daughter has Rudolph on her shoulder and Santa at her side as the oldest of the grandcrew tracks Santa's progress for her on the computer.  I trust that you and your family had a wonderful holiday season.  May God bless you and give you the best that the new year has to offer.