The life

Someone's home or cottage at Mahone Bay. The original was pretty hazy (it was taken with a 300mm lens across a hazy bay) and the colours weren't great, so it took some pretty significant messing around with levels and contrast and masks and all that stuff to get it this clear. I think I'm happy with the final result.

Portrait of a cutie

I think this is the best portrait I've been able to get so far of Andrea... Still not thrilled with it.

Pretty in pink!

There are some absolutely beautiful trees outside my office building full of these lovely pink flowers. I should have gone out yesterday to get pictures, but since I didn't have my camera, I had to wait til today. The flowers are still nice, but you can see that they're already starting to die. Still beautiful.

Fun with Photoshop

The photography course I just finished included a few weeks of playing in Photoshop, learning how to make our images really come alive. There are a few tricks I've enjoyed playing with, and I decided to turn my attention to an old picture of my parents' cat. He's a lovely creature, but the source image never really did him justice:


After a little playing, I've ended up with a picture that I think is much closer to what the cat actually looks like in real life.

Yes, it really is a photo

I was back out at Hog's Back last weekend and got a bunch of pictures. Unfortunately, between dirt on the lens and foolish shutter speed selection, very few turned out. This one suffered from dirt on the lens, but a few minutes in Photoshop sorted that out. In this particular shot, the slow shutter speed was deliberate, because I wanted to catch the motion of the water. Between that and a slight shake of my hand, it almost makes the whole thing look like a painting rather than a photo.

New software, same sock

So decided to have a little fun... I took the same picture I used last time and used my new version of Photoshop to adjust the white balance properly. That's the left-hand side of the picture. On the right, you'll see the same picture I posted last time -- which was colour balanced already, just with a less-capable program.

I gotta say, Photoshop CS2 is teh awesome.

Knitting! -- and also, comments requested

First, a fun pair of felted mittens that Andrea just finished. I don't think I managed to really do them justice -- they're really quite funky, but because of that cuff they're a little chunky at the bottom and that made them lie strangely. I'm not entirely thrilled with the results, but oh well.


Next, a funky sock that Andrea knit! She's making the matching one right now, I believe. I posted up two versions, one with a black background and one with a white background, so everyone could compare the two.

What I'd like from you folks is a comment telling me which of the two versions you like better, and why (if you know why). I have my own thoughts, but I'd prefer to hear other people's ideas.