Baerengeschichte

Nach 5 Wochen war ich wieder zuhause und es war wunderbares Wetter als wir in Petersburg angekommen sind. Wir haben uns gleich in die Liegestuehle gelegt und die Aussicht und Waerme genossen. Die Gasheizung war ausgefallen und somit war es etwas feucht im Haus, aber Gottseidank war es ja draussen warm. Am 2. Tag nach unserer Rueckkehr sahen wir dann unseren ersten Baeren dieses Jahr. Er blieb auf der anderen Seite vom Bach fuer die meiste Zeit und frass Gras. Wir nannten ihnen Rumpy, denn am Hinterteil (rump) hat er die Mauser!! er hat dunkles Fell verloren und ist hellbraun. Wir haben ihn mit den Fernglaesern beobachtet.Am naechsten Tag sahen wir dann Rolly (wie rund und dick!). Er frass an den selben Stellen wir Rumpy, aber als Doug dann in die Stadt (ja, wir sagen Stadt zu Petersburg!) gefahren ist, hat er sich doch glatt vor das Haus hingelegt. Keine 5 Meter entfernt davon. Ich fand es riesig aufregend und habe gleich noch ein paar Bilder geschossen, durch's Fenster, versteht sich.

Seitdem haben wir Rumpy and Rolly noch oefters gesehen. Ob die wohl wissen, dass sie sich ein Revier teilen??!!

Wenn zwei eine Reise tun

Unsere Freunde aus Sitka, Rick und Cheryl, haben uns im Februar besucht und wir hatten viel Spass zusammen. Sie haben uns auch mit Heilbutt und Rehfleisch reichlich versorgt. Im April bin ich dann nach Muenchen geflogen und Doug ist 2 Wochen spaeter nachgekommen. Wir haben den Elsass etwas unsicher gemacht und natuerlich viele Weinproben machen muessen, damit wir auch den richtigen Wein zum Abendessen einkaufen konnten. Nach kurzem
Als wir wieder in Deutschland waren kamen wir gerade rechtzeitig um den Muttertag bei Markus zu feiern. Leider fehlten die Fitzi's und die Burkart's und so waren wir nur 3 Generationen.

Doug als stolzer Fahrer eines BMW, mit dem er mal die Autobahnen selbst ausprobiert hat! Udo hat uns grosszuegig seinen BMW geliehen, was fuer uns natuerlich das Reisen in den Elsass, Schweiz, Wasserburg und Kochel um einiges erleichtert hat. Die letzten Tage haben wir dann in Udo's neu renoviertem und sehr schoenem Haus in Karlstadt verbracht, bevor es wieder zurueck nach Alaska ging.

Final Composite Image

We spent a few days hiking in Arches National Park and I will use 2 images from our hike to Dark Angel. I wanted to create a natural bridge (Rainbow Arch) over the ‘voodoos’ (sandstone men). Arches National Park looks a lot like Bryce Canyon National Park—very prehistoric looking. These formations are one of my favorite places to visit. I also used the picture of the Skagit Valley tulip fields.

First I downsized all three images and then started to adjust the colors. With the voodoos image I increased the Saturation with Hue/Saturation and also gave more contrast with Auto Contrast. I liked this simple color adjustment, because it just brightened up the already beautiful colors. It was a very clear day. I had used a polarizing filter on the camera. This formations are one of my favorites places to visit.

I then took the Rainbow Arch image to match the colors with the voodoos image, giving it more red and yellow in Color Balance. I Smart Sharpened the Arch also because the middle of Arch was blurry and it worked well. The Arch is too dark on the left side (the sun highlights the left side of the voodoos which I needed to match), so I selected the left half of the Arch with Lasso and filled it with an orange color with the Paint Bucket. With the Smudge Tool I smeared the transition in the middle of the Arch. I used the Extract command to get the mask of the Arch and cleaned up the edges with the Edge and Cleanup tool and gave the Layer the new name “Arch”.

Back to the voodoo image…. I filled the empty space on the left side with using the Vanishing Point/Filter and the Marquee tool and named it New Wall. I cleaned up a few spikes in the Background with the Stamp tool and finally Merged Down the New Wall Layer to the Background Layer. Now I have one Layer with the voodoos. I moved Rainbow Arch on this image and clicked Edit/Free Transform to position and scale the Arch so it fits.

I dragged the tulip fields into the destination image and scaled it under Free Transform, so that it fits over the full length. I changed the Mode to Screen in the Layers palette. I added Layer mask and drew the Gradient mask in the tulip field at an angle. With clicking on “f” in the Layers palette I got the Layers Style box and I adjusted the Gradient Overlay setting, Blend mode to Light and I changed the values in This Layer and added some Fuzziness.

Next, I added the text with the Type tool, then filled the text with orange color and Warped it on the sky! I created a cast shadow after I duplicated the Text Layer with pressing Ctlr+Alt+T and I scaled and positioned the new Layer. I named it Shadow (pretty smart, or!?), reduced the Opacity and applied the Gaussian Blur Filter with a Radius of 2.4.

There still was a hard edge between the tulips and the Background image. I took the Eraser tool with a blurred Brush number 13, set the Opacity to 50 and softened the edge.

The spider I found in Flickr.com. It is a Ballus Chalybeius (in case you did not know and always wanted to know it!) I selected her with the Wand tool and dragged her to a new canvas and used the Eraser and Brush tool to clean the shadowy area around her. Then I dragged her into the canyon and with Free Transform I scaled and positioned her. To hide her in the bush I chose Satin and Pin Light Blend Mode in Layers Style and in Contour I chose Rounded Steps. Then I duplicated the spider layer, selected Free Transform and dragged the “new” spider on the right side on the wall. Clicked on the Warp mode in the Option Bar and warped her around! I gave the second spider a Threshold Level of 110 in Image/Adjustment, and now she is a Black Widow. The third (fat) spider I also got in Flickr.com and used again the Wand tool, Free Transform and Warp and with Hue/Saturation command I gave her a greenish appearance.

With the Custom Shape tool I drew a Butterfly and used Free Transform and Warp mode to modify the butterfly. Then I chose Filter Artistic/Neon Glow and gave Texture with the Craquelure Filter and I colored the butterfly with Hue/Saturation and finally I created a Picture Package and I thought that is the end of my Final Exam but the Beginning of the World! …………. Until I showed this to my favorite critic (Doug) and then here I go again….! I changed the Banner color to pink using the eyedropper and also changed the text shape with the Skew under Free Transform. This change was first made in an image copy (#6) to compare, then I cut and pasted it onto the current (#9) image. A final drop shadow was added, with some opacity at 52% using Color Burn blend keeping the shadows to the left/sun to the right as the voodoos. I applied also Inner and Outer Glow and Bevel Emboss to give it more “dark age” appearance.
So….this is better but be careful next time you hike in Arches!!!
I really enjoyed this course and everyone in it. It was a big challenge for me to go back to school in English but I look forward to taking subsequent courses online. Thank you, too, Patti.

Project 4

Project 4

This gorgeous sunset was taken in Favorite Bay from the upper deck of the tugboat Katahdin. I wanted to follow Deke’s DVD lesson and wrote “Koenigin” (it is German for queen) after I selected the Horizontal Type tool. Then I selected the Custom Shape tool, loaded all the Custom Shapes and picked the bird shape (something between an eagle and a dove). I started to paint and drag the bird while pressing the spacebar for position. The selection outline was visible and no new Layer for the bird shape was created in the Layers palette. After starting all over again from the beginning the same problem appeared. Finally I figured out to click on Shape Layer icon in the options bar and here we go and it worked! A New Layer appeared in the Layers palette and I deselected the selection outline with clicking on the Layer. I tweaked the fill and opacity in the Layers palette for the bird and created a second bird with the Shape tool.


With the Auto Color command I brightened the background; the sunset image. I then filled the word “Koenigin” with the green color with clicking on the T Layer in the Layers palette and then I picked the color from the Swatch palette; when the eyedropper appeared I clicked on the green color.

Next I chose Eights Note as a Custom Shape in the options bar and painted it into the image. I pressed A-key for the Path Selection tool, clicked on the note and then pressed Ctlr+ALT+T to duplicate the note. I clicked the “chain” icon in the options bar to scale the note proportionally, then changed the Width and rotated the note with changing the rotate value. Finally I dragged the note. I repeated these steps a few times to duplicate and move the notes. I set HUE in the Layers palette and decreased the Opacity for the notes. Then I changed the Photo Filter in the Layers Palette to Warming Filter and the Density to 60. I liked the bright orange clouds and the shades in the image.

But the bridge of the tugboat almost disappeared in darkness, so I adjusted Brightness/Contrast under Image/Adjustment and also the island in the distance became more visible. With the Shape tool I painted a leaf on Katahdin’s white bridge, picked a red color in the options bar and selected Tie-Dyed Silk under Style for the leaf. Also, I skewed the leaf with the Skew command, Edit/Transform/Skew, to fit it better in the curved pilothouse. The “Koenigin” looked kind of boring so I skewed it with the Warp Icon, then chose the flag and changed bending to -45 and then she was floating with the notes.

The little owl

After I went through Lesson 7 I wanted to create a mask for this little owl. Unfortunately I found her this winter in our woodshed and she was frozen. She starved in the first cold snap we had. We showed her to the National Forest bird expert and he told us that she was a Screech owl and had no meat on her breastbones and that is a sign of malnutrition.

I chose the Extract command under Filter and with the Edge highlighter tool and a brush size 10 I started to select the outline. On the feathery part like her face I increased the brush size to 20. Then I filled the interior of the owl with blue color, using the Fill tool. In the Preview I changed the Display box to a bright green. I pressed C to select the clean up tool and started to erase pixels with Alt-key and click for white and click for black using a small brush size #6. I jumped between Display: MASK and NONE to review my success in cleaning up and kept cleaning! I locked the Layer with / key and saved it.

And finally I put the beautiful little owl on the bridge of the Katahdin where she enjoys the sunset but only after tinting her slightly more red with the Hue/Saturation command.

Mid-Term Part2

Mid Term "Beam me up Scotty!"

I started with this cute little wood frog, that we saw in Australia. I downsized the frog to 180 pixels and the Document size to 7 x 4 inches. I took the Wand tool and selected the backgrounds (beige wall and black chair) and then clicked Inverse under Select in the Menu Bar. I dragged the frog in a new created Layer (File/New) and took a snapshot in the History Palette. I like the bright green color but I will try to change him to a dangerous bright red creature. I increased the Hue and Saturation in Image/Adjustment and set Shadows in Shadow/Highlight to 61% to get a poisonous looking creature. Now I have to clean up a few pink spot on his body with the Spot Brush tool. I used the Crop tool to rotate "Kermit" and then I flipped him horizontally under Image/Rotate Canvas, so I know he is looking down to the left side.

My next animal is the sheep "Dolly" and clicked on Auto Color to give this image a bit more depth and contrast. I want to make the lawn (background) more colorful, so there will be more contrast from sheep to background and the Wand tool will be faster to select the sheep. I changed the grass color to magenta with the Saturation in the Hue/Saturation command. That is a wonderful tool to make quick color changes to keep the brilliance and details of an image. Then I took the Wand tool and selected the sheep, playing with the Tolerance from 30-50 and dragged the sheep finally to a new white canvas which I created under File/New. The back leg was not fully selected so I took the Lasso and selected both the front and back legs and dragged it over to the new canvas. I cleaned up the silhouette with a white Brush and over-painted the big black shadow next to its face. The Image had a light red haloing at its feet, so I then chose the Inner Glow Style in the Layers Palette, set the Blend Mode to Color and reduced the Opacity to 50. I displayed the Color Picker, clicked with the appearing cursor into the sheep’s fur and clicked OK. Dolly was still missing her left front leg (buried in the original shadow that was erased), so I selected the right front leg with Lasso, then copied and pasted it into the left position. With the Brush tool I gave the new foot a thinner (more distant) shape, enlarged her chest and with the Healing Brush I healed her fur from shiny glittery spots which she still had from the selecting with the Wand tool. But I had a hard time to give her more depth because Dolly is a white sheep. I should have chosen a colored one, maybe a blue one!! I used the crop tool to rotate Dolly to look into the fishing hole.

Now it is time to work on the destination image….

"Waiting at the fishing hut*"

I downsized the image to 180 pixels, cropped it and clicked Auto Contrast and Auto Color to make the image more crisp and I increased the Saturation using the Hue/ Saturation command. I like the result. I moved the sheep into the hut using the Wand tool and with the Healing Brush I painted the back leg away and the leg from the chair under Dolly’s belly. Minor improvements…..
The window looked so empty, so I selected a Texture under Filter in the Menu Bar and chose Stained Glass. I filled the sections in the glass with the Paint bucket, selecting the colors from the Swatches palette, step by step. In color-sterile Antarctica; in a white blue only world, I was craving for more colors. So I selected Red Kermit with the Wand tool and dragged him over to the fishing hole where he is waiting now for a lunch to show up.

I restored the fishing line in front of the stained glass with selecting the upper segment and copy merge/paste in small segments. When I reached the bottom of the line next to my head I realized that the fish line moved one pixel to the left because of the current!
I chose to hide the error next to my head rather than in the middle of the stain glass which would have been more obvious.
Red Kermit’s little brother wanted to see what’s going on and he wanted to sneak into the hut following his big brother. So I took the same wood frog, cropped and rotated him with the Crop tool and then selected him with the Wand tool and dragged him over to Dolly.

Next is an Australian parakeet playing next to us at the campground at the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland. I resized the image first and cropped it. Then….I tried to create a path around the whole bird with the Path Tool but my computer couldn’t keep track of all the anchor points so I did it in six sections and then copied each pathway onto the largest one and named it Lori outline. Here, I really got into trouble—I could select the whole bird but I got several triangular lines outside the boundary and couldn’t drag the image into my fishing hut. Oh well, there is more than one way to skin a cat and a parakeet too! I then flipped the bird horizontally and resized it to 2.5 inches long and reduced the pixels to 180.

Finally…. I took smaller ‘bites’ of the bird (Path’s) with selecting the Pen tool, creating new anchor points to make a closed Path in small sections. I started with the foot, placing it on the rim at the fishing hole along with his friends. I transferred the body piece by piece and nudged each segment into place by using the Ctrl-key and Arrow-Key and ‘lost’ the proportions which got me into a bit of trouble again—however with a little patience the bird was whole again and sitting next to his friends….

My oh my, how hard it was to coax that bird into the fishing hut in Antarctica!

The Rhinoceros Bug came next out of the fishing hole (into the hut)! I used the Clone Stamp Tool to erase his shadow and took the Wand tool to select him, filled him with blue color using the Paint bucket. Then I resized him to 1 inch width and dragged him over the fishing hole, where he is still pretty shocked and is trying to hide!

I did not like little Kermit anymore next to Dolly so I am hiding him with clicking the icon in the Layers Palette.
I used the Lasso Tool to select a green area in the parakeet’s tail and with copy merged and paste I cleaned up his tail feathers which still showed some grey areas. I used the same tools to erase the front talon and I covered the missing one with more feathers to give the parakeet a more realistic stance.

The last animal is arriving in the fishing hut and everybody is waiting….

It is a relative from little Kermit, I resized him, selected him with the Wand tool and chose Feather with the value of 15 under Select and then I dragged him over into the cold water of Antarctica. Then I “beamed him up” using the Marquee tool. I drew a thin rectangle from the frog to half way up to the ceiling, with the eyedropper I clicked at a bright green color in Swatches Palette and then changed the Border to get it really feathered with clicking Select/Modify/Border and then changed the Opacity under Edit/Fill. I used the same commands for the “lower blue beam,” and just tweaked the numbers and chose a blue color. I also changed the Brightness/Contrast under Image for the “blue beam” to +39/+38.

A little clean up here and there with the Healing Brush and I am out of the fishing hut after framing my composition.
*Fishing Hole—this photo was taken in Antarctica, inside a 10’ X 16’ foot modular, scientific portable laboratory. It had a hole in the floor which, when towed into place, the ice was drilled 16’ through the Ross Ice Shelf for scientists to catch fish. I was invited to help catch fish on my Sundays off. These were some of my favorite times—I would wait for Wedell Seals to surface for air (and food)—2000 lb. and beautiful animals! Apart from these, I decided to invite some of our favorite sightings from Australia back down on the ice to keep us company. Each animal required a different set of tools to place them in their places.

Mid Term Part 1-My first job!

Shirt-Project

- My first job!

We are almost ready for the annual APPL meeting (Association for Public and Private Lands) in Sacramento, where Doug has a booth for his company to introduce his new posters and products to the National Parks. Since much of his company is run via the internet, his crew is scattered about the country and this will be the first time they meet. We wanted to have a “company uniform” for all of us with a company logo and name on the pocket. We ordered a simple shirt in Safari style, I copied the image from the web, and I designed the print as a draft for the embroidery.

First I changed the color of the shirt to match more closely the color we ordered. The company logo existed only as an artist drawing (.jpg) so I had to change it in Filter/Sketch/Stamp to an art line and then cleaned up the black spots with the brush tool, dipped in a white color! I then resized (smaller) the Logo to fit it on the shirt. I selected the logo with lots of Trial and Error with the Wand and Lasso tools and dragged it over to the shirt and placed it. I still had some of the white background in the logo and I did not like it, but left it for now and took a snapshot in the History palette.

For the pocket lettering, I then clicked on the Horizontal Type tool in the tool bar, selected the Font family to match Doug’s company font, Type size, Alignment and Text color in the menu bar and I also opened the Character palette with clicking on it. Next I took the cursor over to the shirt and wrote the name of the company (three words). I pressed Ctrl-A to highlight all three words and then clicked the small caps icon in the Character palette where I also adjusted the Type size and Leading. I skewed the text with clicking at Edit/Transform/Skew and dragged the handles till the text got tilted to my liking. I took another snaphot (great tool)!

I was still not really happy with the result of the logo because of the white background and it looks too straight and artificially placed. I took the Healing Brush and erased the Logo and also created a wrinkle in the shirt. It looked more natural to me now. Then I used the magic wand by clicking the shift-key and selected all the black areas from the logo and dragged it over to the shirt. Next I skewed the logo to match the pocket angle and finally took another snapshot.
Here is the result. Let’s hope that the new shirts look halfway like my creation.

Project 3

Project 3-Paint, Edit and Heal

This picture was taken in August in Antarctica where it is still winter. It is a self portrait taken after Doug hiked up the 700 foot high Observation Hill—used by the original explorers Shackleton and Scott to survey their expeditions to the South Pole. After reaching the top, Doug took his own picture just below the summit out of the wind. Hiking up Observation Hill was our daily exercise after a long workday at the American research base at McMurdo Sound and took about 45 minutes. It is about 40F below zero!

First I resized the image from 300 to 180 px. resolution and covered a dark spot in the sky above his head—dirt on the camera screen that occurred in all his photographs. I took the Elliptical Marquee tool, selected an area next to the dark spot, copied and pasted over the dark spot. Then I took the sponge tool to smooth the pasted part.

I kept going with the dodge tool over Doug’s face to get rid of the reddish tone, but it did not work. I could not see any changes. I changed the Exposure from 10 to 50, just to check if I can see the difference-I could not! I tried it again, after I went to dinner and back to the computer, and this time it worked. I also used the Burn tool and I did not like the result, so I deleted it.

Now, it’s grooming time… I changed from the magic wand tool to the lasso and selected the worst ice-glob on Doug’s lip and ‘circled’--after changing the feather option bar from 50 to 2 px and then I was able to select the worst of the ice from Doug’s mustache and moved this selection to his right and copied/merged it and pasted in front of his mouth! Well, while I’m at it, I’ll do the same for his nose and eyelids…..I whitened the teeth with Sponge tool, set the option bar to Desaturate and dragged it over the teeth. I also fixed a chipped front tooth with the Lasso tool, copy merge and paste. (With my training as a Dental Assistant, I could not resist!). I then switched the mode option to Saturate and clicked in the irises to bring out the blue eyes.

I also “smudged” the lips and did a little anti-wrinkle surgery under the eyes. Again with Lasso, copy merge and paste. Doug had a shiny spot on one of his front teeth I wanted to dim down. I took the eyedropper and selected a color in Doug’s front tooth, then I grabbed the pen tool and clicked on the pixels in the image I wanted to change.
I changed Doug’s eye color to the real color—Blue! I selected the iris with Lasso, changed to the eyedropper and selected the blue color from his fleece jacket. Then I selected the paint bucket and poured the color into the selected iris.
Again, Trial and Error with the Dodge and Burn tool, I played with the Exposure numbers.

Now I will start with the exercise “Healing and Patching” lesson in Deke’s book and I will keep going with Doug’s make-over afterwards.
I started right away with the Healing brush and Spot Healing brush on his nose, to “heal” the strong wrinkles away, with pressing Shift-key and clicking at 2 points between his eyes to make a horizontal line. But the result did not look too good, so I deleted it and then I took the Patch tool and selected the area between his eyes and dragged it slightly up and released the mouse! And Viola!

Then I stroked over the smaller wrinkles around the eyes (these are of course not wrinkles, it is just from the cold!!!). The bigger ice crystals on the beard had to go too. I used the Healing brush with a small size (6). The source was in the lower left part of his beard and the destination was all over the beard.

I did a lot of Trial and Error with the Healing brush, Spot Healing Brush and Sponge to make the color of Doug’s face more regular but it is still to blotchy.

Now I can take him out to dinner??!