Photoshop PS6

I am tired of posting how I am frustrated with my struggles of learning Photoshop. I decided to play around with my pictures from today. Below is my version of a collage. I liken it to the Highlight magazine game of my youth... "hidden picture". See if you can find three birds.

Birds of a feather....

Bill and I headed out to the Davis Wetlands and Yolo Bypass Wildlife area today to do a little bird watching and get some practice using my new Nikon D7000.

Our first stop was the Davis Wetlands. Unfortunately we were not able to get close enough  to the Tundra Swans (without risking arrest), even with my Sigma 150 x 500mm lens; but it was still great to be able to view them.

There were many Killdeer out today.

Our last stop, the Yolo Bypass Wildlife area is where we spotted this Great Blue Heron and ducks. One great thing about  this area is that you can drive around to view the birds. That sure beat walking with all of my photo equipment. 

I love my new Nikon D7000

Santa brought me a Nikon D7000 with an AF-S DX Nikkor 18-105mm lens. I have been reading the manual for the last week and felt brave enough to go out and try to take a few photos. I headed out to the Folsom Railroad Museum this morning around 10:00 am only to find it closed. While looking through the wrought iron gate I saw it's shadow on the cement and thought it would be a fun shot.

Since that idea was a bust, with the railroad in mind I remembered an area off of Sibley Rd. that I had wanted to stop and take a photo of when the trees were in full color a few months ago.

I love this camera and lens and it is awesome that I can use all of my lenses with it (it is compatible with the lenses purchased for my Nikon D5100). It is going to be so nice not having to change lenses all the time. Now I just have to figure out what lens to have on what camera.

When I set my mind to something.....

Last month Bill and I went out to Folsom Lake for a walk. I brought my camera and only one lens. I happened on a pine tree where an Acorn Woodpecker was busy doing what woodpeckers do. Unfortunately two things were against me that day... it was a cloudy day and I had the wrong lens. When I downloaded the photo below, I saw something I couldn't see from where I was standing to take the photo. I didn't know that woodpeckers placed acorns from the oak trees into the holes they pecked to open up the acorns.

November 25, 2012, 3:30pm

Since there were so many holes pecked in the tree I knew I could go back to this tree another day to try to get a better photo. Today (a month later) I went to the same tree at the same time of day. This time it was a sunny day and I brought my Sigma 150 mm x 500 mm so I could zoom in to get a closer shot.  I really like the picture I was able to get of the two woodpeckers, one with an acorn in it's beak.

December 24, 2012 3:45pm

Long time no post

It has been a month since my last post. I have been out a few times to shoot pictures, but as the season changes the weather and lack of light has been a struggle for me.. I have been taking this time to read my photo books (got a couple great ones as early Christmas presents) and am hoping Santa brings me an external flash. Below I am sharing my first try at editing a picture I took in RAW and  also saved as a JPG file. I really wanted to do some fancy editing in Photoshop but I am soooo overwhelmed when I open the program I revert back to Picasa for editing. I will take the time this winter to master (yeah right) Photoshop.

RAW (edited then saved to JPG)

Edited in JPG

If at first you don't succeed.....

It never fails, I will be out and about without my camera and miss a photo opportunity. Last week I was out walking Roxy and heard hundreds (not exaggerating) of birds hiding in the trees and reeds. I went home and returned with my camera waiting around trying to capture the birds in flight. I knew I had to set my shutter speed to capture the action and the only way this novice knew how to do this was to change the ISO setting to 800. Below are two pictures from this day and as you can see they are very grainy due to the high ISO setting (around 3pm).

 

Bill and I went out to Lake Natomas in Folsom this morning to walk and I decided I better take my camera. Bill found these two shots (he has an eye for photography... it is only a matter of time that he catches the bug and wants to learn how to use the camera).

I decide I needed to go back to the marshy area by the house to try making some adjustments and get some clearer photos (still bothered about the pictures taken last week).  I decided to forget about capturing the birds in flight and focused on the trees, pussy-willows and a few birds hanging around the trees. I took these around 1:00pm with at 100 ISO.

Trying to understand Photoshop CS6

I have been using Picasa to edit my photos because Photoshop CS6  is just too darn complicated. I have been trying to find tutorials to help me understand Photoshop so I can have some fun editing (YES I will admit it, I want to edit photographs). The reason I have changed my opinion on editing photos is because in my research I have seen some really fun effects and I am oh so curious.

Today I viewed a YouTube video on how to get started with Photoshop CS6. Below are my first attempts at editing. The first thing I learned (from my mistake) is to save my original image and edit a copy.

Unfortunately I don't have the before and after to share on one of the images so I will explain what I did. The picture of the tree had houses in the background which really bothered me... so.. poof... houses removed.

Here are before and after pictures of foxtails. I didn't like the branches from a tree on the upper right. When I was setting up the shot I tried multiple angles to avoid the tree branches but couldn't get the foxtails in the frame the way I wanted them. Now with editing I was able to remove the branches and some of the reeds in the grass, in addition I played around with the colors to make them a little warmer.

Now for some fun...

This picture was taken off of Lotus Road between Rescue and Coloma. By using "Filter Gallery"
and selecting Artistic/Poster Edge I was able to give this a totally different appearance. Make sure you click on them to open in a larger view so you can see the effect better.

 

One step forward, one step back

After our day trip to Lake Tahoe a few months back Bill and I decided to celebrate our anniversary up in Homewood. We rented a really nice house accross from the lake. This is the first time we took Roxy on a trip. She actually did very well on the drive and enjoyed swimming in the lake.

 

I titled this post one step forward, one step back because just as I think I am improving as a photographer I take a step back. My major challenge was shadows on this trip. I need to plan my destinations better based on the time of day.

We spent one afternoon at Kings Beach and enjoyed the amazing weather and scenery. It was great having the time to play around with the camera and various lenses.

 

 

We took a drive to South Shore, stoppping at an overlook of Eagle Falls. It had snowed a few weeks prior so the falls were running. Bill pointed out the shot I took of the hillside (good eye Bill).

 

South Lake Tahoe was very quiet.  We had coffee/tea over by the Delta Queen, watching tourists and relaxing a bit. The picture of the bears was a bronze statue outside the cafe.

 

 

Surprise

I have been out and about shooting photos and am behind in my posts. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to photograph a person learning gun safety. Below is one of the photos where I was able to capture the barrel flash from the revolver (unedited photo). I love it when I capture something unexpected and see it for the first time when viewing my shots for the first time.

Apple Hill - Fall 2012

I took a trip up to Apple Hill in Coloma, CA with my daughter Lexi and her boyfriend Justin on Sunday. If you haven't been to Apple Hill let me give you a few tips. Weekends are a great time to tour the farms because there are more crafts booths to look at, but you will find yourself waiting in traffic a lot of the time. I recommend being up  the hill by 9:00am and going to High Hill Ranch first, you can get there by taking Carson Road off of Highway 50 (this exit is less than 1/2 mile from the ranch).  High Hill Ranch has everything you need and if that is your only stop, you won't leave feeling you missed out on the "Apple Hill" experience. High Hill Ranch has pony rides, fishing, hay rides, pumpkins, crafts,cider, pies, apples... I am sure I have left a few things out.

There were so many tourists, so rather than trying to set up a good shot without a lot of people getting in my way, I decided to take some close up pictures that represent some of the things I enjoyed seeing that day (I would post some of  Lexi and Justin but I promised I wouldn't).  I would like to point out that the picture shot though the pine branches is not a black and white photo, it just happened to turn out this way due to the time of day and the lack of sunlight due to clouds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Highway 88 fall colors October 2012

This is my second year attempting to capture fall colors, last year was on the East Coast.

The fall color reports you find on Google are very accurate, so I knew heading out that the colors would not be vibrant, but this was my only opportunity to spend a day photographing so I headed out with my friend Earlene.

We met up at 7:00am in Placerville, on Highway 50 and headed east to Highway 89 south, Luther Pass towards Highway 88, Carson Pass Highway... destination Hope Valley. Nothing significant to photograph on the way. We turned west on Highway 88 to Hope Valley. It was important for us to get to Hope Valley early enough to ensure the lighting was good. Weather reports yesterday said it would be cloudy, but luckily it was a beautiful sunny day.

We saw the "barn" that everyone photographs but didn't stop. We decided to go a mile past the "barn" for our first stop.

 

We continued up Highway 88 and saw a dirt road and decided to do a little off roading. This was a fun stop. There were a lot of aspen trees in the location. Notice the two close up photos of the aspens. When I was taking this picture I didn't notice the names carved on the left tree. I thought I would try my hand at retouching on this picture. The second picture is the edited photo, removing the names Paul and Hillary.

 

As we continue up Highway 88 we noticed a barn so we made one of the many u-turns we would take today to go back and photograph.  As we gather our bags, tripods and cameras to walk through a fenced area, we found not only a barn but a cabin and an outbuilding. The ground was very wet, it was very marshy. Good thing I brought extra socks and shoes because to get these photos my shoes got wet.

Our next stop up Highway 88 was Caples Lake. I was hoping I could capture reflections of color in the lake. With the limited color on the trees today I was fortunate to get a couple of pictures with the effect I was looking for. By this time the sun was overhead (almost direct sunlight) on the two pictures with trees but the sun was behind me for the picture of the hillside.

 

 

One more u-turn to stop at this vista point to take in the beauty of this valley. (Note to self... document the names of the vista points or look outs where I stop.)

The last stop before heading back to Placerville was Silver Lake. As you can see by the picture the lake was very low and mirkly along the shoreline.



We took the Mormon Emigrant Trail back to Highway 50. This is a beautiful drive, sorry I didn't take any pictures, Earlene and I spent most of the time talking and enjoying the fresh air and scenery.

We stopped at the Apple Cafe just outside of Placerville right on Highway 50 for lunch and enjoyed their outdoor patio.  A great place to eat and relax enjoying the view. This cafe is very crowded during this time of year because of the tourists heading up to Apple Hill.

 

Ok time for lessons learned and things worth noting.

1. TIMING:
I think we did a great job timing the trip with the sun. It is very important to spend the time to plan your day in advance to make sure you don't miss out on the correct lighting.

2. LENSES:
I primarily used two lenses on this trip, my Nikon 50mm and my Sigma 150x500mm. I really need to get another camera body so I can keep a lens on each and better utilize the appropriate lens for the location.  After reviewing my pictures (too late to do anything about it now) I realized I should have used one additional lens this day, my Nikon 55x300mm.