Drop Shadows in PhotoShop

I spent the afternoon and evening trying to learn to do drop shadows in photoshop. And I did it!! hurray, at last ... and its so easy, once you know how, of course. This website was the best help; http://www.rogercavanagh.com/pstips/tip03-1.stm

I spent some of the morning deleting files on photo.net. The place was sold last spring sometime. Its not a widely known fact on photo.net. I, for one, would rather not have any images left after my subscription expires there. So, I am starting now to delete, while reading over the comments and saving all the good critiques... mostly from Cyrus and Steve Hickel.

Victoria Grid December

A couple of the shots that I used in the Victoria Grid Project group on Flickr. This is Bowker Creek in Oak Bay area.

Photo.net was sold some time last spring. Josh Root is the Admin for PN and has set up a blog on blogspot to note the problems the site is having. The blog is for people to check when the site crashes, it seems. I doubt that very many people even know of the blog or of the sale to Name Media Inc. Here is the October/first post to the blog: http://photonetnews.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
I am deleting photos on photo.net, as I no longer see any value in keeping them on that site. The forums will still have the information, I imagine. There are tons of ads there now. It sounds like an impossible task to add the new hardware and any new or changed features. PN has a newsletter that they forward to all registered members... that mailing list alone must be a real mess. The news letter is just not that exciting, either. ho hum!!

Flickr is noisy and has some terrible glitches, too. It will be nice to move to Cyrus' new site when its up and running. I think there are quite a few of us who can't wait till it is ready!

I was to see Dr.Sparanese today for my thyroid meds renewal. They told me in the morning that I could just come in as a walk in to the clinic, didn't need an appointment... well hell, I wait for an hour and then he was well past his leave the clinic time.. I wonder if he was due at the hospital ... hope not.

Yesterday we had these snowballs falling.. like hail. Its been quite cold lately and so the roads can be icey.

The Victoria Grid Project for December

I am finally getting around to tweaking my photos for the December Grid Project group on Flickr. After seeing Dr. Donna I walked and walked, again.. down Pandora to Oak Bay and over to the hospital and back on Fort Street. New stops this time. The Kokopelli characters are at Delicado's. The Elves in the window of Dig This and the door, window, mail box is at Country Comforts.

A lot has happened since I took these just a few days ago. I have been busy.. Christmas party, and out to Butchart Gardens for dinner with Sheas... we walked after dinner and saw the lights. It was magical. My photos, of course, are crap, cause I didn't take my tripod to dinner. There has been the finish of the Grow op matter. Stressful but interesting. Dinner out after the first day, at Swans, with Lloyd. After the second day I was just exhausted and went to bed and slept at 8:30. This is what stress can do. Its a real killer. Good thing I have a few weeks before my next blood tests for Dr.D. or I am sure I would be right off the charts, again.

I have made shortbread and have most everything else ready for our Christmas. No rum balls made... we should be ok with christmas pudding and rum sauce.

I really should get sending email christmas cards to friends... my email is backed up too. Oh well, tomorrow should be another good day for this.

Southwest US trip

A couple of photos from our trip down to New Mexico last year. The Painted Desert is a very interesting place to photograph. I won't be getting around to loading this trip to my web page any time soon.

I have been out to the Grid (oak bay, again) but didn't get much in the way of photos. I must get a few tweaked and loaded to the Grid project soon. They had the meet, today to decide on next month's grid and to go shoot alleys with some person from Monday magazine or somewhere or other. I did not care to go, maybe I should have, though. It was raining, it could not have been a very good day for the shoot. We will see what they use, I guess.

Lloyd was over Friday and back home after our meeting with Penner re Nob Hill. We now go on Tuesday. So this has been cutting into my sleep and play time, too. Three more days and its finished, one way or another.

I am thinking of doing the July Antique run photos up for my blog, when next I get some time. I should also finish the Up Island trip for my web page. This album is half finished. Would just take a bit of time to do it up. I have not published anything to my page since April. This blog is just so convenient to use and to vent.

The tree

It was a lovely sunny day with big white fluffy clouds. A bit crisp. But just perfect for raking leaves. I have raked up all of them that have fallen, so far. There are still about one quarter of the tree's leaves left to fall.

The three photos above are from a tree that I see out my dining room window. The one with the leaves framing the tree in a sunset is a composite of two photos I shot at the same time. I could not get the background and the foreground to work out in one photo. The leaves are from the tree in my front yard and the tree is about half a mile away.

Cathy H. passed away yesterday, just the day after her mother's funeral. So sad. We won't be going back for the service.

Flare with CS Filter

I was playing with my CS filter to get this and a few other shots. The light source is the sun shining through the dining room window. I tweaked it a bit in Photoshop -- not sure if its an improvement or not, but it was fun playing with the burn tool, the paint bucket and a few other adjustments. The flares are real and untouched.

We had snow today... lightly. I saw the hummingbird and there were robins and other birds coming to drink on the water table and the bird bath.