Photo Editing

I am continuing to learn how to edit my photos with Picasa.  I am amazed at how much I can do with this free download.  The new version is here.  Today I learnt about watermarks and then looked at some more of the Tuning features.  One feature is using Fill Light.  This is used where the background e.g. the sky is bright, making the subject, in this case a koala, too much like a silhouette.  I know that if he had been closer, a flash would have lit him up, but looking at the photo retrospectively I decided to try the Fill Light - you can see how well it worked, bringing out colour in the tree and texture in the koala's fur.  Quite possibly I could have played with it for longer to get it better but was pleased with this.

The original photo

Cropped and Fill Light in Picasa

Multiple Exposures

One of the things I am looking at now is photo editing.  I don't have Photoshop or a similar program, just the free downloads of Irfanview and Picasa.  With these two programs, I have discovered how to work on multiple exposures.  First of all I tried to get complicated, putting four photos into this one of Rundle Mall.

Rundle Mall, with the bronze pig, the fountain, tree and the "Malls Balls", all layered together.  A bit too much.

So then I simplified for this, showing my cat overlaying the marine aquarium - just 2 photos.

More at the Port

The City of Adelaide has been brought back here by a dedicated group.  I haven't had time to go on the tour yet.  When I was reviewing these photos on my computer, I realised that a shot of this window opening, had something on it.  When I enlarged it, I found the plastic covering had reflected a house right across the bitumised area in front of the ship.  Because of the distortion in the plastic, the reflection is also distorted and looks like something from a Grimms Fairy Tale.

Look at the reflection in the plastic covering the window opening - you can see a house some distance away.

Photography at the Port

Recently I did a photography workshop at Port Adelaide, which gave fresh life to my photo shooting.  One of the sights that interested me most was all the rope - along the wharf where the City of Adelaide was moored, plus the working boats - they represent hard work, and strength.

So many different ropes, all with their own reason for being

I tried a black and white image here

Texture in the ropes

Bugs in the garden

Winter in my garden looks very bedraggled.  There were lots of aphids and bugs on the weeds, and lots of caterpillars too.  Without caterpillars there won't be any butterflies in the spring and summer so I left the weeds alone.  Caterpillars were clustered all over but the photos weren't interesting enough to post.  More interesting were the other bugs - aphids, a small spider and another bug (as you see I'm not very well up on insect identification).  But the first photo is actually (I think) a piece of the dried out seed head of a weed - looks just like an alien!  Both photos were shot on Aperture Priority, F/2.8, ISO 100.

©Christine Linton

A dried out seed head looking like an alien

xx

©Christine Linton

aphids, spider, other bug

Dew on webs

Winter wonders in the garden:

©Christine Linton

©Christine Linton

©Christine Linton

Going round the corner

I thought this photo was rather funny, because the caterpillar appears to be going round the corner.  In fact, they must have very sensitive antenna or eyes, don't honestly know which, because whenever I tried to put the camera on the ground in front of it to capture the front of the head/the face, it kept turning away.  This was not really close to the caterpillar either, at least 6 inches or more.  In the end I had to take this from above then crop quite drastically.  So I couldn't get the detailed view I wanted.  Such is life.

©Christine Linton