A Day In The Park- Lighthouse

Towards the end of last summer I spent a day in the park. I took photos of everything I could possible find. It was a beautifully sunny day with wispy clouds in a blue sky. I came across this lighthouse and really liked the way the pond reflected the lighthouse. What you see in the background though is a combination of real and airbrushed clouds.

I found some cloud brushes, and played around with them a bit. I added some clouds to the image. I believe these clouds are the cloud brushes by Blazter which can be downloaded here.

After playing around with image manipulation software, and adding clouds, and sun, and light, etc, I can't help but wonder how much of any image is really what the photographer seen. So many images we see in magazines are illusions of reality.

Lighthouse in the park, artificial clouds added with the cloud brushes by Blazter. Download link in article.

Cat In His Window.

Well the warmer weather has almost reached Western New York. It's been unseasonably cold for April and May. My cat loves this window in the summer. So today's Pic A Day is my cat Buddy, chilling in front of his favorite window. As soon as the weather warms up a bit more I need to get out and get some photos.

Buddy chilling by his window.

The Niagara River

This image was originally 3872 x 2592. By taking larger size images you'll have more room to work with in post processing and you will probably find more uses for your images.

These 2 photos were taken from the same image. By cropping different sections of the image you can come up with different perspectives of the image.

The picture was originally of two guys fishing off the side of a pier on the Niagara River. The photo was taken by leaning off the end of the pier, and hanging over the water. The image had to be straightened and this was the first edit.

As the post processing began, I thought this section of the image had a warmer feel to it. By shooting your images large, in a good quality setting, you have more room to edit, and get different perspectives of the same shot.

Old Grain Mill on Lake Erie.

An old grain mill found on Lake Erie. I don't know why but I really like the way this one came out. I adjusted the contrast and brightness a bit with Gimp. Added a little more blue with the color balance and that's it.

Old grain mill found at the mouth of Lake Erie right outside of Buffalo N.Y.

Jerry Garcia Wall Mural Pic A Day

Roaming around town, I decided to take a couple shots of the Jerry Garcia mural in Little Italy. This has been up for a long time and when it was first painted about 10 years ago some jerks shot it with paint ball guns. The whole neighborhood went nuts about it, they found the perpetrators, and nobody has ever messed with it since. YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE JERRY !

I've been trying to get out of my comfort zone with Gimp and try to experiment with some of the different filters and effects the program has to offer. The second image was my attempt at making a psychedelic sky. I made a simple mask around the rooftops with the free select tool, and then I used the fractal filter to get the trippy sky. For my first attempt I'm happy, but think I could get this better. I want to really start manipulating some of the different photos I've taken.

Jerry Garcia mural, Little Italy, North Buffalo NY

Jerry Garcia mural with Gimp sky manipulation. I created a mask with the free select tool. Used the fractal filter, and the sun looking thing is the sparks brush that comes with the program.

Pic A Day Wildflower Gimp Manipulation

A picture of some wild flowers. The image was manipulated in Gimp, with the filters/oilify filter. Then filters/distorts/lens distortion. The end result is the image shown.

Something I Started Working On

O.k it's fifteen minutes till midnight and I just remembered I almost forgot my picture of the day. I kept busy today trying to get another blog off the ground. I have a huge love of the Spanish language and a ton of stock photography on my P.C. so I decided to start a Spanish language blog.

I thought I could use a lot of the stock photography for tutorials like the image shown.

Picture of pigeons being used for spanish tutorials.

So my picture of the day is of las palomas or in English pigeons. These were taken by the Niagara River near my home.

If you enjoy learning Spanish, check out mi-palabra-del-dia.blogspot.com
I also bought mi-palabra-del-dia.com but haven't pointed the domain yet.