Barn Swallow

Juvenile?
Cornell says:
"Juvenile looks similar to adult, but tail shorter and less forked. Underparts paler."

It sure doesn't look like the pic at Cornell. This little fellow looked pretty rough. Maybe it was the damp weather (See note below).

See also enature.

He was standing guard by the nest up above him.



Barn Swallows
Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Coneflowers on the Prairie

From the field:













LINKS:

Native Wildflowers of the North Dakota Grasslands

Prairie Coneflower (Ratibida columnifera)

Purple Coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia)

Purple Prairie Clover (Dalea purpureum)
(This was that little purple flower in the vase photo.)

Flew In For A Photo Shoot

Look who flew in for a photo shoot. I mentioned before that birds like to perch and poop on our outdoor temperature gauge. Usually they fly off before I have time to grab my camera. Tonight, this one just stayed and stayed. I got 24 good shots of him. Very unusual.






What kind of bird is he? Some kind of Warbler? or Flycatcher? Kingbird? I'm not sure, but I think maybe it's a Western Kingbird.
I've definitely heard that sound around here.

On the Net - Western Kingbird:
at enature
at cornell

NOTE:
See also Kingbird Returns
and
Picturesque

21 Jul 09:
Junior flew in a year later - here.

Mourning Dove Close Up

This is as close up to a mourning dove I'll ever get. (Original size, crop, no sharpen.) Incubating those eggs in one of our evergreen trees. I didn't realize it at the time, but it looks like there were two on the nest instead of just one? There's a tail on the right side.



I did use the zoom, so I wouldn't have to stand too close, and cause them even more stress by my presence.

At Cornell it says:
"A Mourning Dove pair rarely leaves its eggs unattended. The male usually incubates from midmorning until late afternoon, and the female sits the rest of the day and night."

The pic was taken early morning with my S3 IS 12x zoom Canon.

More mourning dove pics
here
and
here

Coleslaw Recipe

And here we have a crappy tripod picture of coleslaw.

Actually, I'm posting this because I always use the coleslaw recipe on the package of shredded cabbage I buy at the store and today no recipe on the package!

So now the recipe will be on my blog where I can always find it.

Coleslaw recipe
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I use light)
2 T milk
1 T white vinegar
1/2 tsp sugar
1 package (16 oz.) shredded cabbage

NOTE: I put extra sugar in it because I like it sweeter. I also don't mix the dressing in with the cabbage. I use it as a salad dressing on the side. Why? Because if we have leftovers, after a day, it gets watery and soggy.

Halftones and Textures

Idea from: graphicdesignforum

After reading that tutorial/article, I got the idea of just creating a fuzzy soft drop shadow on a separate layer, selecting it, then applying the halftone effect to the background gradient layer. It worked and I like the look (image above). It's just a fast easy way to create an imperfect feathered selection around the text and then adding something to it.

Why not apply something else, like a texture? I like that too.

Balls and Bubbles

When I was trying to create bokeh in Paint Shop Pro 9, I was playing around with the Balls and Bubbles effect and created some images I liked.

The backgrounds were radial style gradients gaussian blurred like the bokeh images were. See previous post.

I discovered there is a newer preset (version X of PSP) for making oranges in Balls and Bubbles that is WAY better than the old preset, which I blogged about a while back. Link to previous Orange.

Image Creations:

Here's that Orange preset, tweaked to create multiple oranges instead of just one.


Water Drops Preset, tweaked and warped with that Warp Brush mentioned in my bokeh post, so they didn't look so perfect.


This one was a Green Bubbles Preset. I changed the color to white.


NOTE:
Paint Shop Pro stuff is getting harder and harder to find online. It is not very popular anymore since Corel bought it from Jasc. Version 9 is the best version and it is old. I often get my own blog links when I google the topic! So I know that can't be very popular when my own blog shows up as a top result in a google search! LOL

Bokeh With Paint Shop Pro

I've been trying different methods for making bokeh in Paint Shop Pro 9 (PSP9).
Bokeh generally refers to blurred backgrounds in photography.

But what I was trying to create were those soft light circles that I see are so popular on Flickr tagged bokeh.

I wanted something fairly easy and fast.

Examples of some of my attempts:





HowTo:

1. For a nice background, I used a radial style gradient and change the angle, repeat, center points.
Then gaussian blur at 30-50.

2. For the soft light circles layer I use a round brush preset called "confetti" and tweaked the settings and variance (F11). Step and Position Jitter settings gives random placement of the circles. Oscillating Fade Opacity and Color Blend Jitter randomly varies the color/transparency.

Layer Blend Mode was set to Overlay. The brush colors were then White FG, and a dark gray BG.

This gave me some nice circles but they looked too perfectly round.
So I did two layers of circles.

Layer One I lowered the hardness of the brush setting above and/or I used Blur Average Filter set to Aperture 3. That blur seemed to looked better than gaussian blur or the other blurs offered in PSP9. Motion blur could maybe useful too.

Layer Two, now this one was just a pure fluke surprise I discovered by trying different things. I used the Warp Brush, Cloud preset and lowered the Strength and Noise, lightly touched over the circles and that gave those imperfect circles I was looking for.

3. Try a different brush stamp like a heart and use the same brush settings and variance.

Image Notes:

Bokeh1
Background was a rainbow gradient (pj-5-crayonbow) radial style Angel 73, Repeat 2, Center Point Horizontal 77, Vertical 17. You don't have to manually set all those, though. Just drag around that circle/stick doohicky in the preview window. I don't know what it's called. Then Gaussian blur 50.

Bokeh2
Another radial style gradient add gaussian blur.
I created the gradient based on colors from a colourlovers article on
wine. (I love that place!)

Bokeh3
Passionata radial gradient add gaussian blur.

LINKS:
Create bokeh with camera
Gradient Link (Set 4)
Warp Brush Cloud Preset

Movies Memorial Day

My fav was P.S. I Love You (2007).
What's not to love about this movie?
Great cast, great music, hunky guys.
I love romantic comedies.
Hilary Swank was good in this movie.
Gerard Butler is so good lookin'.

Based on the book by Celia Ahern who is from Dublin, Ireland, so it had to have some good old Irish in it, right. She is a producer for the ABC comedy Samantha Who?. Yes, I had already read the book. I can't remember much about it.

Some of the movie cast:
Lisa Kudrow as Denise Hennessey (30 Jul 63, Encino, CA)
Hilary Swank as Holly Kennedy (30 Jul 74, Bellingham, WA)
Gerard Butler as Gerry Kennedy (b. 13 Nov 69, Glasgow, Scotland, UK)
Kathy Bates as Patricia Rawley (b. 28 Jun 48, Memphis, TN)
Jeffrey Dean Morgan as William 'Billy' Gallagher (b. 22 Apr 66, Seattle, WA)
Harry Connick Jr. as Daniel Connelly, (b. 11 Sep 67, New Orleans, LA)

Lots of videos at YouTube on this movie. Here's a search link for the soundtrack.
P.S. I Love You Soundtrack

My Favs:
If I Ever Leave This World Alive, Flogging Molly
Galway Girl (Gerard Butler sings it in the movie. There's also a version by Steve Earle.)
Get Off, Prince (look for the karaoke scene)
Last Train Home, Ryan Star
Love You Till The End, The Pogues
More Time, By Need To Breathe
Same Mistake, James Blunt

A lot of the good songs aren't on the soundtrack CD.

Bullet Buttons

In Paint Shop Pro9 make buttons instantly with Balls and Bubbles Artistic Effect.

Tube them.

Here are some buttons I made, if anybody wants them.



Transparent so you can cut out the ones you want.
Use as is, or tube them.
Add drop shadow if desired.

Inkscape 0.46 Gradients

I was recreating some Paint Shop Pro gradients in Inkscape by tediously entering the color code and stop in the gradient editor.
But wait, look at that Gradient Tool over there in the left side bottom of the screen. Wow. You can do all kinds of stuff with it if you know about it. I need to type up some notes on that.

Okay, so say you have an image and you want to make a gradient using the colors in that image. How do you do that in Inkscape?
Import image.
Create an Object. ( I clicked on the rectangle tool and mouse dragged to make a box.)
Click on Gradient Tool and drag it over the Object you just made to create an initial gradient.
Double Click anywhere on that gradient line and it creates a new gradient point or Stop. Click on that Stop to select it, click on the Dropper Tool, click on the color you want from the image, and viola, that color is now the selected Stop color.

See gradient features New for version 0.46.

The following is not new to this version of Inkscape, but I thought it was a handy tip.

Create an object, duplicate it several times, select all, evenly distribute (Object, Align and Distribute), click gradient tool and drag over all the objects, select a gradient. Instead of individually filling each object, the gradient is spread out over them all. This looks really nice when used with a monochromatic (?) color scheme or same color, different shades.



From:
Gradients over multiple objects
Also an example of this in the online manual here. (Look for "The eight objects share a common Gradient" section.)

Inkscape 0.46 Copy/Paste

Still diligently working in the new Inkscape and learning new features.

When did copy/paste screenshots and copy/past images from outside applications start working in Inkscape? I distinctly remember that NOT working when I was using Inkscape 0.45. This is extremely handy for learning. When I have a popup window within Inkscape that I want to capture for the settings, Alt/Print Screen to capture just the popup window and then Ctrl/V to paste it in Inkscape. I'm so relieved that works now!

HOWEVER, I discovered Inkscape is dumping junk files in at least a couple of places on my hard drive. I think these may be the screenshot images. What does that mean if I delete them? Will the image NO longer be in the svg file I pasted it into and saved? Yup. Now how would I know that? That's abnormal behavior for a graphics program. Inkscape is LINKING to an image file it creates and dumps in my svg folder. The svg folder ends up getting lots of junk files dumped in it. I also found junk files in my C:\Documents and Settings/User folder. Some of these predated Inkscape 0.46, so this was happening with the older version Inkscape also. I don't really mind that it does that; I would like to know about it, though, so I can delete what I don't want.

Inkscape 0.46 Turbulence

Probably the most interesting new effect in Inkscape version 0.46 is Turbulence.

I've been playing around with just two effects together to learn what it can do.
1. Turbulence
2. Color Matrix

You can come up with a LOT of different textures with just those two. I made clouds (like Photoshop), grungy metal, silky cloth, water, fibers (like Photoshop), stripes, etc. It's endless. Just with those two effects together.

Objects, Filter Effects,
New
Add Effects: Turbulence & Color Matrix
I didn't change connectors area.

Start Here:
Turbulence
Type Turbulence (Fractal Noise seems to give a smoother look.)
Base Frequency .001 and .002
Octaves 7
Seed 0 or slide to vary pattern.

Color Matrix
A little difficult to figure out.
This seemed to work:
Row 1 is Red
Row 2 is Green
Row 3 is Blue
Row 4 is darkness/lightness

I set everything to zero.
The I entered a 1.00 in row 4, column 3 and got gray.

Saturate or Luminance to Alpha from the Type drop down seemed to give you various grays too.
Different look, though, and I was trying to figure out the coloring.

THEN if you want a soft blue, for example, enter a 2.00 in row 3 column 4


Observations

1. Turbulence results have transparent areas, which you don't notice because in Inkscape the background is white.
So put it on a layer by itself and add different colored objects layered underneath it, so you can see what it really looks like.

2. Export as *.png to preserve transparency. However, you need to drag the layer off other layers below it before you export, otherwise the lower layers seem to get exported along with it.

3. When you move the object the effect changes. So dynamic, not fixed.

4. I always forget to check mark the filter so it's applied to the selected object.
5. Artifacts. Zoom in/out to get rid of them.
6. Pattern is bigger than object size.

7. Base Frequency:
1st parameter max and 2nd parameter min = vertical stripes
1st paramater min and 2nd parameter max = horizontal stripes

Blue Stripes

Turbulence
Type Fractal Noise
Base Frequency .400, 0.00
Octaves 5
Seed 0

Color Matrix
Everything to zero THEN
row 3 col 1 = 1.00 (blue)
row 4 col 5 = 1.00 (dark/light)

red = a 1.00 in row 1 col 1
green = a 1.00 in row 2 col 1
etc.

Fibers

Turbulence
Type Turbulence
Base Frequency .015, .001
Octaves 7
Seed 0

Color Matrix
Everything zero, then row 4 col 3 = 1.00



Water

Turbulence
Type Turbulence
Base Frequency .022, .271
Octaves 1
Seed 143

Color Matrix
Type is Luminance to Alpha



Grungy Metal

Turbulence
Type Turbulence
Base Frequency.001, .001
Octaves 5
Seed 41 or slide it around til you get what you want.

Color Matrix
default THEN
row 4 col 1 = 1.00 (col 4 = 0)



Silk Cloth

Turbulence
Type Turbulence
Base Frequency .004, .056
Octaves 1
Color Matrix is default, THEN row 4 col 1 = .40 and col 4 = 0





Wispy Sunrise Clouds

Turbulence
Type Turbulence
Base Frequency .004, .017
Octaves 5
Seed 150 or whatever you want.

Color Matrix
everything to zero, then
row 1, col 5 = 1.00
row 2 col 1 = 1.00
row 3 zero
row 4 col 4 = .50

Reference Video Link:
Episode 058 - Filter Effects
(See UPDATE2 note below.)
There is a clouds effect in the sample .svg (read comments), but it is quite different than what I'm doing here. The effect I was going for is more like the render clouds effect in Photoshop that you come across often in tutorials.
The sample svg cloud effect adds Flood and Composite layers. I think this might change transparency, dynamic, pattern size observations I listed above. I tweaked this filter and made a nice old paper texture and also some soft puffy clouds that looked different than what I made before.

Soft Puffy Clouds


Turbulence Type is Fractal Noise (but try Turbulence for a different look)
Base Frequency 0.011, 0.014
Octaves 7
Seed 336

Color Matrix
Changed it to default.
In the sample svg file you change Row 4 all zeros except Col 4 = 1.00

The rest of the settings are the same as the sample svg file.
I used a blue gradient that fades to white, so the clouds disappear on the bottom.

Old Paper
Same settings as the soft puffy clouds, only change the colors to various shades of light beige.

Flood color is #F9F5E1
Linear Gradient Colors are f5edc3ff, faeda6ff
Don't forget to try Type Turbulence instead of Type Fractal Noise, might like it better. Turbulence is a bit rougher.
Can you add Displacement Maps to that for a torn paper look? I tried it, but couldn't get it to work. I might not have the connectors right. I don't know if you can add it into the same effects stack or if you have to add it on a separate layer or what. I copied the object and moved it to a layer beneath, then added Turbulence & Displacement Maps to get torn paper edges. It doesn't look very good. Can see the edges of the textured paper layer on top.

On the old paper layer I tried the old way to make a rough edge: object to path, add nodes, add jitter. That's too fine, though, but it did fade the edges into the torn edges layer below it. Inkscape became extremely sluggish at this point.

The *.png export did not transfer the rough edges very well either. Here's the screenshot.



Anybody have better ideas on old torn paper look? Please leave comment.

LINKS:
Manual Section on Filters
Color Matrix Section

NOTE:
Gotta watch the memory in Inkscape.
I have to exit and reload when I hear my puter start to grind. Task manager tells me it becomes a major resource hog the longer I work in it. I wonder if it's the History? Can't clear it.

UPDATE:
Sample file included with Inkscape 0.46 software:
Inkscape\share\examples\turbulence_effects.svg
Shows how to add noise to an object - layer turbulence (source alpha) with composite (source graphic)
Type: Fractal Noise makes it noisy as opposed to Turbulence which gives it a completely different look.
Base Frequency is "locked together" or NOT linked so it only has one parameter instead of two.
Clearly demonstrates how Composite confines the effect to the borders of the object. It is set to Atop, try different Operator.

UPDATE2:
This is in reference to the Episode 058 - Filter Effects
video mentioned above.
There are TWO sample *.svg files with same name, newer version (dated 27 Apr 08) adds several more effects like sharpen and emboss. Click on the original flower picture, go into Effects, Raster, Add Noise. ALL the flower pictures get noise? Not sure why? Get some interesting textures that way, though.
Direct Link to both of these sample *.svg files.

UPDATE 11 Feb 11
Comments about Filters in Inkscape v0.48
here (Grouping object to filter.)
and
here (Change color with Flood.)

Inkscape 0.46

The new Inkscape version 0.46 for Windows just came out this month of April. I downloaded and installed it over the weekend, so I am preoccupied with that.

Wow, things have changed since I last was into Inkscape.

I'm hunting down relevant links and comparing old to new versions to see what's new. A LOT, evidently.

Inkscape
Inkscape 0.46 Release Notes
Screenshots
Tutorial listings
Inkscape Forum

Inkscape 0.45 Manual
New Section on 0.46 Filters

I don't think I ever blogged this clock, made by the same person who wrote the manual.
Clock
An svg file version of the clock is included with Inkscape software in Inkscape\share\examples, but the link above displays it animated within Firefox browser.
Also look in Drawings folder for more stuff.

There is an Inkscape tutorial blog now, yay.
Inkscape Tutorials Blog

I see there's a tiled clone mosaic tut there like the one I did a while back, here.
(Tile Clones - MuRa's Meister Copies free plugin will do something similar in Paint Shop Pro. No link, Google it.)

Downloadable Video Tutorials

Episode 058 - Filter Effects
Wow. There's no way I'd figure that out on my own. Read the comments and you'll find an *.svg file that has a bunch of effects examples in it. Nice!
More Inkscape Examples
(Sort by age and you'll find the effects example file listed on top,
filename: inkscape_filters.svg)

Episode 049 - Sunbursts
I created rays with tiled clones here.
This video is a lot more detailed than I went into, but I see it has the same core idea of using tiled clones.

A bunch of gradients
I think they are just GIMP gradients *.ggr so might be easily available elsewhere on the Net where the GIMP people hang out.
Import within Inkscape via File, Import.
You want zipped file: ggr-grads-0_4c.7z (I unzipped with TUGZip.)
There's also a previews pdf file: ggr-grads-preview-0_4.zip

Well, I'll be busy with Inkscape for a while.
Will probably post more stuff for future reference.

My Aurora - Northern Lights

If I study enough tutorials, eventually, it all comes together and produces something I like.
I've been studying lighting effects using Dodge layer blend for a l-o-n-g time and finally am starting to understand it.
Reference: Light Effects Tuts List

My Aurora:


How I did it:

Layer1
Background layer needs to be a dark sunburst gradient.
I had black with a very dark blue sunburst and the blue does slightly show thru the layers on the finished product. Make sure the blue is very dark almost black because when adding layers using dodge it can get too harsh bright. (I don't think plain black fill will work with the aurora dodge layer above it. Try it. Won't see the aurora layer.)
Reference: Lighted Coffee Cup Tut

Layer 2
Fine stars
fill black, add noise, levels, layer blend is Screen
Reference: Supernatural Text Effect Tut
My blog post on that.



Layer 3
Big stars
Ulead, Particle free plugin (google it), Stars Effect, tweak settings to get effect you want, layer blend is Screen.
Reference: Galaxy Tut

Layer 4
The aurora lights look was a multiple step process.
It was when I was working thru this MSNBC Effect Tut that I came up with a method of my own for making those light lines.
Note: The Render Fibers, Motion Blur effect look can be made in Paint Shop Pro by using any black and white pattern and applying the Offset Effect to pull the colors down and make stripes.

Step 1

OR



Fill with gradient or whatever colors you want.
I used an old PSP pattern called bright emerald. I could also make a similar pattern effect by making a linear gradient fill using two tones of green, and then using a textured brush (small bristles hard brush tip) to add some yellow.
(Note: The small bristles hard brush tip is great for painting on a dodge layer blend.)

Step 2
Mess up the color fill with the Warp Brush Cloud Preset. (This will soften and blend the colors so they aren't too harsh with Dodge layer blend.)
Reference: Quick Cloud Effect Tut

Step 3

Make a selection, invert, and delete the outer edges.

Step 4
Use Displacement Maps to get ragged messy edges. It doesn't really matter what setting, pick a rough texture to make it nice and bumpy, hit the random button till you get some messy edges.
Reference: Infinite Borders Tut
My blog post on that.

Step 5
Add Motion blur


Step 6
Use the Deform Tool to stretch it out.


Step 7
Layer blend is Dodge

Layer 5
The top layer contains the black evergreens. I had an evergreen brush tip I used. I set the Brush Variance (F11) to Size Jitter 31 and Rotation Jitter 5. This varied the tree size and angle as I applied the brush.

(Note: I had this layer already made when working on the aurora layer. It helped to see what the final effect would be once the trees were added. I moved the aurora layer around until I got the look I wanted.)

My Blog Logo

I was working on some logo ideas for my blog name, just for the fun of it.

Well, so far, I like this one the best:



Here's a plain vanilla version:

I wasn't sure about how the "road" should intersect with the text?
I might recreate in Inkscape for a high quality vector, but for now, this was just created in Paint Shop Pro 9 on layers.

The fonts were: Garamond, BlackJack Regular, and Scriptina.
The Scriptina "I" was edited, of course.
The "road" is a box shape, deformed, colorized, waved.
The background is just a ready made gradient called "landscape morning."

I figure the plain vanilla version is easy enough to change into whatever theme I want if I get sick of the earthy look.