Grounded Chipping Sparrow (Stamp Filter)

I'm not quite sure that it's fair to say that this chipping sparrow was "grounded;" it was actually more the case that the chipping sparrow was voluntarily on the ground, picking up the seeds that had been knocked (or dropped) from the feeder by the other birds. Thanks for stopping by!

Finch Looking for Take Off (Dry Brush / Stamp Filters)

I included both versions of the photo in today's post, but I think I like the stamp filtered version better. Even though I like the color and the details on the Dry Brush version that are lost in the stamp filtered version, the imperfections are not as readily seen in the second as in the first image. Thanks for stopping by!

Stamp Filtered Finch

Here's a stamp filtered finch for the end of a busy week. Thanks for stopping by!

Mourning Dove in Comparison (Dry Brush Filter)

To look at these three images, you might not notice a whole lot of difference between them. The first is the least processed of the three, having been tonemapped in Photomatix and then cropped in Paintshop Pro.

The next image was edited for color, contrast, etc. in Photoshop Elements. One of the bigger changes that I notice is that of the color, which seems cooler in the edited version below.

The final edit that I applied was Photoshop's Dry Brush filter, which is one of my favorite filters to apply to my images. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Mourning Dove in the Evening (Dry Brush Filter)

One evening, this Mourning Dove happened to stop by and posed very nicely for me on a clothesline post. Being evening, the original image started out dark. Processing it in Photomatix, I brought out the color in the image, a little too much, actually. Going back to Photoshop, I layered the colorful HDR version into the original, muting the color (or bringing out the color in the image, depending on whether you like to look at a glass as being half-empty or half-full.) I took the resulting image over to Corel Paintshop Pro to use the noise reducing feature and crop the image. Switching back to Photoshop, I applied the dry brush filter effect for the image that you see above. Thanks for stopping by!

A Bird in the Bush is Worth...

I know that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but this little bird is hanging out in my raspberry bush.

The funny story here is that I had been mowing my lawn, when this little fellow jumped out into the open (well away from my lawn mower) and started opening its beak at me. By the time I went into the house and came back with my camera, it had disappeared, but I quickly spotted it hanging out in my raspberry bush.

Juvenile Robin (Stamp Filtered)

The robin that I posted yesterday gave me several poses to choose from. Here it is in another pose, which I this time processed with my stamp filters. Interestingly enough, the background came in very dark, and the deck in the foreground came up very light.

Thanks for stopping by!

Juvenile Robin on a Wet Deck

It's been raining around here recently, so this photo from the archive of a juvenile robin standing on a drenched deck seemed especially timely. Thanks for stopping by! (Stay dry, or hydrated, depending on your situation.)

Baby Robins

Several months ago, some robins nested at my house, and before I knew what had happened, there were eggs in the nest. Not too long afterward, these guys started popping their heads out of the nest. And then again, before you quite knew what had happened, they had all "flown the coop". I put this image up both in color and in black and white. I think I like the black and white version better. Thanks for stopping by! 

Flicker in the Tree (Stamp Filter)

I happened to spot this Flicker in the tree in my backyard, where it actually blended in quite well under the cover of the foliage. Here in black and white with the stamp filter, I think it stands out.

Thanks for stopping by!

Goldfinch on a Wire (Dry Brush Filter)

The goldfinch here looks like he is pondering the under-side of the wire. More accurately, he was pondering the bird feeder that was hanging somewhere underneath the wire, over in the direction where he is looking.

Thanks for stopping by!

Baby Finch (Dry Brush Filter)

Several months ago, I found a nest with eggs in it, and sure enough, baby finches followed. (They have long since 'flown the coop'. I don't think they stayed for more than two weeks after hatching, but it's been a while and I would have to check that.) Here, one of the babies was poking its head up over the nest.

Thanks for stopping by!

Experimental Goldfinch (Stamp Filter)

So, I've been experimenting by using the eyedropper to select a color out of the image as the base color for my stamp filtered image. Here is the original image:

I selected yellow out of this image and came out with the following:

When I take these colored images back into elements, I will often go through a three or four step process: Auto-Smart Fix, Auto-Levels, Auto-Contrast, and Auto-Color Correction. In clicking through these options, my colored image has often been converted to black and white. My yellow image above was converted to the following:

I'm sure there's a good explanation for why the program did this. As for me, it's a fun experiment to see what I can produce. Thanks for stopping by!

American Crow... in Purple (Stamp Filter)

Yes, it's an American Crow in purple... or whatever color ink comes in (dark blue?) I use the grabber tool to snag a color on the bird, and then I used that color as the basis for my stamp filter. I like the overall result, since the picture looks like something of an ink drawing.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wooded Scene (Stamp Filter)

Here again are two versions of the same image. The first was processed in Photomatix for HDR effect. I took this image over to Photoshop Elements and stamp filtered it, and then layered the color HDR image into the stamp filtered image. In this case, I think I like the stamp filtered image better. The colors are toned down a little bit (layered into the stamp filtered image at 67% opacity.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Birch Tree and Evergreens (Stamp Filter)

What initially drew me to processing this image was the birch tree, which stood out in the rest of the landscape. As I stamp filtered the image (in black and white,) I lost the birch tree, but the evergreens stood out from the rest of the landscape. (They were dark patches in the midst of a bunch of vertical lines.) To get the birch tree back, I layered the colored image into my stamp filtered image (at 67% opacity) and... voila! Thanks for stopping by!

Tree-scape (Stamp Filter)

Here is a darker and a lighter version of a tree-scape photo that I converted over through my stamp filter layering process. The first version, using darker images, came out... darker, maybe a little bit darker than I was hoping for. So, I processed the second batch of... you guessed it, lighter images, and they came out... ok, maybe a little bit lighter than I was hoping for. Of the two, I think I like the darker version better. (What was interesting to me was that the clouds were not caught by the sketch filter, even in the darker version.) Thanks for stopping by!

Killdeer at the Beach (Stamp Filter)

I'm not sure that this photo of a killdeer at the beach was much improved by running it through my stamp filter, but - then again, if the picture wasn't necessarily the best to begin with, the picture may, in fact, be much improved over the original. (It's all a matter of perspective.) Thanks for stopping by!

Black/White Stamp Filter Layered Mourning Dove

I'm really a fan of the grass in these layered stamp filter images. (The bird is a bonus.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Woodpecker at the Feeder

It always catches me a little by surprise when I see something bigger than the finches, chickadees, and other tiny birds that we are used to seeing regularly at our feeder.

Thanks for stopping by!

Female Goldfinch (Dry Brush Filter)

The original version of this image was much darker, as you see below in a slightly touched up version of the image:

As the image was brightened up in Photoshop, there was all sorts of noise that needed to be cleaned up. I like the effect that the dry brush filter gives, so... voila!

Thanks for stopping by!

Finch - House or Purple? (Dry Brush Filter)

Having discovered that the female finch of yesterday's picture was a Purple Finch, I suspect that this might not be a male House Finch but a male Purple Finch. However, looking at a comparison at this link, I still think that the bird in this picture is a House Finch. Thanks for stopping by!

Female Purple Finch

At first, I thought that this was a female house finch, but upon a closer look, the markings don't line up. I googled the image, to which, Google Image Search told me it was a bird. (Thanks, Google.) What was helpful was a little button that said, "Finch," which I was pretty sure that it was, and the next batch of images yielded something close to the bird above. When I clicked on the image, I had to lol the explanation that said a purple finch is not actually purple, but that the name had something to do with its Latin counterpart, purpureus, which apparently has something to do with the color red. (Which, the male of this bird is quite red.) Thanks for stopping by!

Dark-Eyed Junco, Looking at You

I tried a couple of edits on this image, but I decided on trying to edit the RAW image file in Photoshop Elements. With the other edits, I would get the bright white-out effect on the bottom right-hand side of the bird, where the little white feathers are next to its leg, which really gave it an unpleasant look. The problem was that the rest of the bird was so dark (shot at -1 step on the exposure bias to increase the photo speed) that my attempts to brighten the dark parts would whiten out the white parts.

The image still seemed somewhat dull, so I ran it through Photomatix and got the following result.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dry Brush Filtered Junco on Stamp Filtered Background

I didn't so much care for the way that the bird turned out in the stamp filtered version of this photo, so - mixed-media style, I layered in the dry brush filtered version of the bird over top of the stamp filtered background (and erased everything until all that was left was the bird on the background.) Thanks for stopping by!

Dark-Eyed Junco Revisited (Stamp Filter)

I like how the grass comes out in the stamp filter. If you didn't know that it was grass, you might imagine it to be something else. (If I had the patience and the technical know-how, it would be interesting to go through and shade the grass different colors; that would really give it a different effect!)

Thanks for stopping by!

Male House Finch, Eyes Closed (Stamp Filter)

I don't think you can quite tell that the bird's eyes were closed in this version of the image. (They were closed in the original below, or at least, they looked like they were closed.) I didn't like the yellow pole in the background of the image, which was conveniently removed in the stamp filtered version. Thanks for stopping by!

Rabbit Posing (Stamp Filter)

I think there's something about the lines in the fur which make these rabbit photos an interesting experiment with the stamp filter. (There are also a lot of lines in the grass, but I happened to catch the rabbit in a patch of dirt where it wouldn't get "lost" in the busyness of the stamp-filtered grass. Thanks for stopping by!

Rabbit Revisited (Stamp Filter)

The following is an image that I posted last year that I decided to revisit with my stamp filter process.

After making my black and white stamp filtered image, I layered the colored image above back into the stamp filter (at 2/3 opacity.) While the colors are muted in the second image, the lines are stronger, which I like a little bit better than the original. Thanks for stopping by!

Resting Rabbit (Stamp Filter)

Having seen a couple of rabbits the other day brought back memories of a rabbit that I had seen a while ago. I got to thinking about how those rabbit images might make an interesting experiment with the stamp filter. What I found interesting were the little triangle eyelashes that appeared in the edits. Thanks for stopping by!

Processed Black and White Jelly Fish

The first is the black and white version of the image. The second is my stamp filter processed version. The third (for kicks) was the stamp filter processed version inverted. I find jelly fish interesting to look at. (Interesting to process, although, I'm still trying to find something I like.) Thanks for stopping by!