Using Picasa for editing photos

On By stefrobrtsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’ve been using Google’s Picasa, a free photo editing/organization software to handle my photos for my picture-a-day project, and I’m really happy with it. In particular it has lots of adjustments for color, tone, contrast, etc, just like you would expect – but it also has a button that says ‘I’m feeling lucky’, and when you hit that it throws what it’s got at it. And it’s usually pretty subtle, but so far it’s been pretty right on.

This is a picture I took the first day of the project, but I wasn’t using Picasa yet, and it was not nice enough to use.

But after running it through Picasa and hitting the magic button:

Dang, that’s not bad!

Alki!

On By stefrobrtsIn alki, petsLeave a comment
Nice shot of Alki from our photo session tonight. She’s still hanging in there, tinkling on the floor, blind, deaf, and cranky – does what she dang well pleases! She’s at that age where she would wear purple and a red hat and if you don’t like it – tough!

A rainy walk at the lake

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, outdoors1 Comment

I took my blurry buddy for a walk this afternoon at the lake. It was sprinkling when we left, but it turned into a pretty good downpour before we were through. Not that he minded. It’s hard to notice you’re getting rained on when you insist on jumping into the lake every chance you get!

 
Even under the circumstances, it was nice to have the place all to ourselves. 

The chickens are loose

On By stefrobrtsIn chickens2 Comments
The chickens are loose again! Tough decision, but there’s a couple reasons behind it. Number one is that the chickens were fine for a year and a half before the hawk decided to start snacking on them. Number two is that they can’t stay in the coop forever. Number three is that I really can’t afford to build an enclosure for them, it wouldn’t work well where they are because of a big tree right outside the coop door, and so they need to go out again sometime. If the hawk comes back and kills another, I might just go ahead and find new homes for the remaining chickens and get out of chickens all together. Hopefully the hawk has moved on to greener pastures and won’t come hunting back here.
Update: all chickens still accounted for. The weather was so lousy they spent most of the time inside the coop anyway.

Barclay and Alki

On By stefrobrtsIn alki, barclay, pets3 Comments

Alki has been worrying me a bit. The other night she didn’t follow me around while I made dinner, and didn’t come sit with us while we ate, which is pretty unusual. Instead she was asleep on the doggie bed in the office. Then last night she was scratching at the front door at 4am, and when I went to see what she was doing she seemed a bit lost and confused. She seemed fine this morning. I don’t know if it’s a side effect of her cancer meds, but I’d swear she’s getting a bit of doggie-dementia. Of course in a few months she’ll be 15, so I guess that’s like 105 in dog years, so she’s entitled!

Canon SX10 IS and a new photo blog

On By stefrobrtsIn camera2 Comments

Last year the CCD went out on my much-loved Canon S2IS, and after spending a bit of time trying to get Canon to fix it for free (they wanted $135 to fix it), I finally had it returned to me and have been using it as the only thing it is fit for – a paperweight – ever since.

I was finally ready to get a new camera to replace it, and I spent a lot of time soliciting opinions, reading up on Digital SLR cameras, learning about lenses. One thing I knew I did NOT want was another Canon. When my S2 broke down I read about many other people online who had the same thing happen. Some got their cameras fixed for free, some did not. I knew someone locally who had the same thing happen to their S3 and they had to pay to get it fixed. I was pretty unhappy with the spotty customer service, and that so many expensive cameras were breaking down and Canon felt they didn’t need to stand behind them.

But after much researching, adding up the costs of new cameras and lenses, and reading the recommendations of people who really really liked their Canon cameras, I finally relented and asked Canon to send me the new info on the Canon Loyalty Program. That’s where you can trade in your broken camera for a new refurb unit. It came down to spending $359 for a Rebel XS DSLR, or $200 for a SX10 IS. The SX10 is the modern equivalent of the S2 – if they’d stuck with the naming convention it would be an S6. It will bump me up from 5 to 10 megapixels, and from 12x to 20x zoom! One nice thing is being able to browse through Flickr and see the quality of pictures people have taken with it.

I bit the bullet and made the order. By next week my new SX10 will be here. I can’t wait, I’m excited to finally have something with more features than the point-n-click I’ve been using. To celebrate my new camera, I’m going to start a new ‘picture-a-day’ blog. That should force me to get out and really use it.

Less of Jack

On By stefrobrtsIn jack3 Comments

When Jack came to us he weighed in at nearly 50 lbs – hefty hefty hefty! He almost collapsed after a good walk around the park. He also had a skin allergy which caused itchy skin and goopy ears. Here it is a few months later and Jack weighs in at around 30 lbs, and we’ve finally settled on a food that controls his itchy issues and leaves him looking beautiful and his fur is silky. Jack’s a good boy, very sweet and handsome, even if he is a little food obsessed sometimes! We have to watch him all the time, or he’d steal everyone else’s food and be back to 50 lbs in no time! And if you try to get between him and food – well, count your fingers when you’re done – he’s serious! But all in all he’s a pretty good boy 🙂