Stray Cats are Wandering the Neighborhood (Dry Brush Filter)

It doesn't take too much imagination to figure out what this cat was looking for, but I don't think that it found it here at my house. We've been seeing quite a few of these neighbor cats coming through our yard in the past several days.

Dark-Eyed Junco in a Tree (Cutout/Dry Brush Filter)

The dark-eyed juncos were back (and out). One flitted back and forth between my deck and somewhere on the ground. When I tossed seeds out onto the deck, maybe half a dozen of the birds took off flying from underneath. Fortunately, when I went outside with my camera a little bit later on, I found one of the birds up in a tree in my yard. I liked the way that Photoshop's cutout filter rendered the background behind the bird, but I also liked how the dry brush filter rendered the image, too, so I posted both versions today. Thanks for stopping by!

Black Bird Digging for Food (Dry Brush Filter)

Some day I'll learn to be able to tell the difference between a raven and a crow, but, until that time, all I can say is that this "black bird" was picking through the ground, probably looking for seeds or bugs. At one point, I eventually did catch the bird with something in its mouth, though from the picture, I cannot quite tell what it is. Thanks for stopping by!

Squirrel on Deck (again) (Dry Brush Filter)

If there is any animal that I can fairly well guarantee that I would be able to take a picture of at almost any time of the year, that would be a squirrel. I see them year round here in my neck of the woods. Because of the aggressive nature of the squirrels in our neighborhood, I don't even bother to put my birdseed out in a bird feeder; the squirrels would find a way to get into it. So, I take the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," approach and simply spread the birdseed out on my deck. A lot of it goes to squirrels and chipmunks, but I will get the occasional nuthatch, chickadee, finch, etc. Today's picture, however, features my main birdseed beneficiary, the squirrel. Thanks for stopping by!

Feline Visitor to my Deck (Dry Brush Filter)

This was one of those, "Hey, Dad! Look what's on our deck!" moments. I don't so much mind the cats that wander the neighborhood, although, I have heard that cats are not particularly good for those who enjoy bird watching... Thanks for stopping by!

Grackles on the Arches (Dry Brush Filter)

This is a church building in town that we often pass on our family walks. Several times as we passed by, we noticed the bird high up on the building, on the third brick arch. It wasn't until I took the image into processing that I noticed that there was also a second bird up  there, over in the corner; it had been hidden in the shadows, and from ground level, we hadn't even noticed it. Thanks for stopping by!

Tree in the Midst of Tall Dead Grass (Dry Brush Filter)

I know, my titles aren't all that exciting. (Who wants to look at a tree in the midst of tall dead grass?) Well, I liked it, so I thought that maybe you might like it, too. This is an HDR image, processed from 3 exposures, and then filtered through Photoshop Elements for the Dry Brush effect. Thanks for stopping by!

Red Tree in an otherwise brown Landscape (Dry Brush Filter)I

I came around for another angle on this small red tree that's growing in front of some otherwise brown and drab looking brush and trees. There was still a line of snow on the ground, yet spring can't be that far away. The robins are back, and it's apparently supposed to snow on the robins twice before winter is all said and done. (I'm not sure that the few flakes that were in the air yesterday counted.) Thanks for stopping by!

Yellow Grass and Trees (Dry Brush Filter)

I'm running a little late this morning, so I'll post this one without comment. Happy 500th post!

Red Trees or Shrubbery?

I'm not sure what these little red trees are called. Walking around town, I saw that someone had what looked like a group of these growing together in one part of their lawn, so maybe it's some kind of shrubbery?

Incidentally, I am coming up on my 500th published post, which should be up tomorrow. According to my overview, I've had over 4,200 page views (which, I wouldn't put too much stock in, as most of those visits have probably come from spiders and autobots.) If you're an actual person, thanks for stopping by to look at my photography!

Looking through the Brush, to the Creek (Dry Brush Filter)

I really like these red plants/trees in the foreground for the color that they add to this scene. Together with the blue of the creek/river-overflow in the background, they add some life to an otherwise colorless image. Thanks for stopping by!

Dead Grass, Golden Yellow

I was mostly interested in the red branches in the foreground when I initially took this picture, but as I considered it later, I really like the golden yellow of the dead grass in the background. Thanks for stopping by!

Chickadee in a Tree (Dry Brush Filter)(Platinum)

This chickadee was hanging out in the tree long enough for me to take a whole slew of pictures. That was fine, because, hanging out in the branches, it was tough to catch this bird at just the angle that I was looking for. I like the color version, but there was a little too much purple hue for my tastes, so I tried it in the Time Machine platinum photo effect. Thanks for stopping by!

Carnation Bud (Dry Brush Filter)

Blackbird on a Pole

Today's photo is a blackbird on the end of a pole. Of the two photos in today's post today, I like the second one better. While the first image has a cool vintage feel to it, the second one has bolder colors. Thanks for looking!

Canada Goose (x2) (Dry Brush Filter)

Somewhere along the line, someone told me that a Canada Goose is always "Canada Goose" and never Canada Geese. However, looking online, Google gives me a gaggle of references to Canada Geese, and so... playing it safe, I simply referenced today's photo as "Canada Goose x2" (or you can call them Canada Geese, if that is what you prefer.) Thanks for stopping by!

Nuthatch in Tree with Seed (Dry Brush Filter)

This picture shows the nuthatch after it has left my deck, with the seed still in its beak.

Bald Eagle Background (Dry Brush)

While out for a walk yesterday, I happened to catch a bald eagle flying overhead (yes, through town!) I wasn't at all set up to take the picture, and the bird was far enough away (and moving quickly enough) that I wasn't able to get as good of a focused shot as I would have liked. However, I did like the resulting shot well enough, that I ran it through the dry brush filter and thought that the result was good enough for something like generating memes, such as:

Thanks for stopping by!

Moon in the Morning

I saw the shadows of birds flying through my yard this morning, and I when I looked overhead, I saw that the moon was still visible through the branches of the trees.

Cloudy Sky through Trees (Dry Brush Filter)

As we were out taking a walk the other day, my wife asked my what I was taking a picture of as I aimed my camera up toward these trees. (I had been looking for birds earlier in the walk.) At this point, I said that I liked the cloudy pattern in the background with the tree branches in the foreground. In general, the color blue is a personal favorite. Thanks for stopping by!

Squirrel in the Snow (Platinum)

A few days ago (when we had a lot more snow on the ground,) I saw this squirrel in my backyard digging in the snow. Actually, I saw this squirrel first on my deck, digging in the snow, so... I knew what it was doing. More than likely, it had some acorns buried out in that part of the yard. Squirrels must have an amazing sense of smell to be able to track down food under the snow. Thanks for stopping by!

Sparrow Looking over the Edge

After hopping around on the clothesline post for quite some time, the sparrow here, looking over the edge, looks like it is just about ready to take to flight.

Sparrow on the Pole (Dry Brush Filter)

This sparrow stayed long enough for me to take several pictures. I liked its position on the clothesline post in this picture, but there was one particular flaw that stood out: a light reflection in the bird's eye. I took this problem into PaintShop Pro, where I selected the offending part of the image and applied the Magic Fill. It sort of worked, as it took out the white, but it left behind something that was blurred. I took the resulting image over the Photoshop and used the Dry Brush filter, which did a fairly decent job of covering over the otherwise fairly obvious (if you were looking into the sparrow's eye) smudge that the Magic Fill had left behind. Thanks for stopping by!

Sparrow Dropped By

Today's photos are two processed versions of the same image. A sparrow dropped by today; it's been a while since I've seen any sparrows. This one was hanging around on my clothesline, and there was a nuthatch not too far away at the time. (There may have been some territorial issues between the two birds.) The second version of the image is processed with an "early color photograph" application from Corel PaintShop Pro. In contrast with the first version, some of the color is removed from the image. I'm not sure which way I like it better, so I included both. Thanks for stopping by!

Emperor Penguin at the Zoo (Dry Brush Filter)

Penguins are among my favorite animals to look for when I go to a zoo. As interesting as it might be to go some place like Antarctica, the reality is that I will probably never be anywhere that I might actually see a penguin in its natural habitat; the zoo is probably as close as I will ever get.

That said, one of the cool things about the Emperor Penguin is the deep golden yellow in its head, neck, and beak. It adds some color interest to an otherwise black and white animal.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tiger at the Zoo

I'm a little late for throwback Thursday, but the original for this image was taken in St. Louis back in 2005 on my Sony Cybershot DSC-F707. The original file was a JPEG, which I ran through Photomatix for HDR effect with the following result. 

I like the original tonemapped version, but, in the spirit of trying things out to see if you can make a good thing better, I took the result over to Photoshop Elements to see what would happen if I applied the Dry Brush filter.

I'm not as crazy about the result that I got here this time. I think it's because the original image was so small, and even when I dropped the Dry Brush filter brush size back to "1", it was still a little big for the image size, resulting in a little more blurring than I would have liked.

Oddly Shaped Tree

This oddly shaped tree trunk (a tree that is growing indoors) looks like it has had branches trimmed at various points in its life. Given the right imagination, one could see some kind of strange, alienesque animal in this image.

Impressionistic Chickadee (Dry Brush Filter)

Catching this chickadee faraway in flight, it appeared as something of a blur on the resulting image. What can be done? Apply Photoshop's "Dry Brush Filter", which kind of/sort of blends everything in the image together, so that the somewhat blurry chickadee now has a kind of wavy appearance, and I can (try to) call it (sort of) cool looking. Thanks for stopping by!

Snowfall Against a Wooded Background (Filters)

A few days ago, we were barely getting flurries, and I decided to see what I could capture with my camera. My shutter was clicking faster than the snow was falling, so each frame only managed to capture a few flakes per frame. (Had I set my shutter to something slower, maybe I would have gotten some interesting streaks across my picture? I'll have to try that next time...) For the first picture, I used Photoshop's Paint Daubs artistic filter. For the second, I used the Dry Brush.

Chickadee in the Snow (Dry Brush / Platinum)

In this particular case, I prefer the color to the black and white image. Not that there is much color in this picture of a chickadee, although - it surprises me how much orange/brown there is on this bird. I had always pegged the chickadee to be more of a black and white bird. 

Return of the Junco (Dry Brush / Platinum filters)

Today's post includes two versions of a photo (taken yesterday). As I opened the curtain looking out on to my deck, I saw, on the edge of the deck, a Dark-Eyed Junco. And then, I saw several of them, but as soon as they saw me (and before I could return with my camera,) they all left my deck and made for the tree line on the edge of my property. (Figures.) I did manage to get a few shots, and I liked the effect that Photoshop's Dry Brush filter added to this image, as well as the old-time look that the Platinum "Time Machine" effect (PaintShop) gave to the image, so I included both in today's post. Thanks for stopping by!

Also, I might mention a bizarre thing that happened with my camera today. I've been having a problem reported elsewhere online, in which my Sony NEX-6 can't seem to lock on to an F-stop setting and then it resets itself. There was a new problem today, in which the camera gave me a malfunction message and asked me to turn it off and turn it on again. I turned the switch to do so, and the camera would not power up. I waited, tried it again, but to no effect. Finally, I pulled out the battery, waited, re-inserted the battery, and that seems to have done the trick.