It's Photoshop Time Again

As you know, I love playing around with images in Photoshop and so I would love to share a few of my creations with you. I hope you like them. :-)

The beauty of a rose

"Leaving the page"

The Budelheimers

The Furgang

Bica (Color Key)

Scene from the Mannassas Battlefield

"Have a great journey"

Harley D V-Rod (Rodney is named after this one)

Here's a fun one. 

"Slybone and MadUncle" (Named after Simon and Garfunkel, of course.)

Not to forget "Smiliemonster's Greatest Hits"

Bath Time

Not to forget the "Stroll at the Lake"

On the left you see the castle of Hellenstein which is located in the town I was born in. On the right is part of my daily walking trail along the Potomac River at Great Falls Park. In this image I was trying to combine my hometown in Germany with my home in Virginia.

Knowledge is Power

"Creating a Masterpiece"
This is my little grand nephew Aaron. (I "borrowed" his brother Levin's open eye for this image)

"Eldin"

"Marie"

"Uncle Max"

My grandmother and my mother

The BW pictures above are restaurations. Pretty difficult, but the result isn't too bad, is it ?

Bjorn

Bicalina

Just playing around in Photoshop. :-)

Vintage Window

"Nightbird".
This is actually an edit of a picture I liked very much, but it's quality left much to be desired. So I turned a blurry bird at daylight into a nightbird and thus I am able to enjoy the image anyways. :-)

Wine and Song

Over time I create these little "masterpieces". I still use Photoshop 8 and I'm having loads of fun creating these images. Usually it takes anywhere up to two/three hours to finish one of these. I haven't been doing a whole lot of them lately because of my inflamed wrist joints. Still hoping for them to heal without having to have surgery. Three dogs and two arms in a cast doesn't sound good. Therfore: Photoshop has been put on ice for a while. 

As always: Clicking on the images will let you view them original size, and please leave them here. Don't take them with you ! ;-)

Watergames

It's been brutal the last couple of days and the heat has been almost unbearable. I always feel sorry for poor Tessa having to run around in a thick fur coat all the time. The Budelheimers take the heat much better than she does, but then again, they almost have no fur to talk about. Winter is payback time - they freeze and Tessa is frolicking.
Needless to say, when it gets hot nobody really wants to exercise either and even though we go to the park at the crack of dawn, there are times when I don't make it in time to beat the heat. Did I mention that humidity isn't all that shabby around here either ? Opening the door at 5 o'clock in the morning, you find yourself facing an instant sauna. Did I mention that I hate saunas ? They give me panic attacks ! Avoiding that total sauna feeling is not entirely possible, but trying to avoid it as best we can, makes getting up at the crack of dawn an easy task.
Right. Tessa and the heat. I got side tracked. Out comes the garden hose, which makes her turn giddy in an instant and off she goes to the grass while I stand on the patio controlling fun and games. .......and water hose of course.

Ever tried to bite water ? 

Of course you have the option of ducking under it. Don't expect not to get wet though. 

Take a running start, close your eyes and..........geronimoooooooooooooooo ! 

Hey - can I have more of this ? 

Every girl needs a good facial every now and then. 

Pawbath, anyone ? 

This goes on for a couple of minutes and you can see her disappointment once I turn the water off. 

Can you imagine how long it takes to get her dry ? 

The Budelheimers don't believe in waterworks. They rather work on their tan:

Lazy bunch !

Spring wouldn't be Spring without some Flowers

Is it just me or has spring been extremely wet this year ? I can't remember my flowers being in trouble because they are flooded out rather than dried up. Anyways - I did take a few pictures of some flower buds around our yard and I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I do:

As always: Clicking on the images will allow you to view them full size. Enjoy !

Instant Summer !

Boy oh boy - we did the usual Virginia thing: Go straight from winter through a couple of days of spring into summer. Mind you, last week the temps were in the fifties, which makes us pretty cheerful. My kind of temperature ! This week is a different story: Straight from the fifties into the nineties.  Guess what ? With the hot weather the humidity returns and it's back to getting up at the crack of dawn to take the furgang for a spin. I still hate walking in the neighborhood and so I end up loading them up into the car and off we go to Great Falls Park usually. It's only a 15-20 minute drive and we rather walk in the woods than in an asphalt jungle. It turned out to be a beautiful morning and we leisurely walked for almost two hours. Around nine o'clock the sun started feeling very intense already and we were glad that we got to walk under the protection of the forest shade.

It's amazing how lush and green it is this spring. We had more rain than usual and I can't wait for the hordes of mosquitoes as a result of it. This is a glance at the swamp area and I am convinced that these blood sucking little warriors are plotting big battle plans on how to get us eventually. Can't wait !

Mosquitoes and other blood sucking insects aside, there's nothing more peaceful than walking through a forest early in the morning. I just love the light coming in through the trees and the fact, that one meets only the occasional jogger. It's bliss !

The mountain laurels are at full bloom . . .

... and some funny looking long and low creatures have been seen grazing like miniature cows along the way.

While others wait patiently at the side of the path for the crazy photographer to pack away the cam. Today I took the small pocket cam with me again. It's just too much luggage to drag the big cam with all the lenses and three dogs in the other hand. The small cam comes in handy to quickly take some snap shots as we go along.

That's it for today, folks. We'll be back soon. I think tomorrow we will have to step aside for some serious flower pics and other yard stuff. You never know. :-)