Top Five Featured images on Red Bubble in 2013

It has been an eternity since I last posted a blog entry. March 13, 2013 to be precise. So I guess I am way over due.

2013 was an amazing year for me on Red Bubble. I had a total of 239 images receive a combined total of 502 features. So I thought I'd take the time today to post my five most featured images on RedBubble in 2013.

My most featured image in 2013 on Red Bubble (in fact my most featured image ever) on Red Bubble received eleven features was this image of the HMCS Kingston when it came to visit Kingston, Ontario.
HMCS Kingston

My second most featured image with ten features was one of a Great Mormon Butterfly photographed at the Montreal Botanical Gardens located in Montreal Quebec.
Great Mormon

Coming in at third place with nine features is this image of sunflowers taken in downtown Kingston, Ontario during a sidewalk sale.
Sun worshippers

In fourth place, also with nine features, is this image taken of a soybean field along County route 2 in Napanee, Ontario.
Nearing Harvest Time

My fifth most featured image in 2013 on Red Bubble with eight features is this White Morpho butterfly. This image was also taken at the Montreal Botanical Gardens.


I know I said my top five, but there was another image that also had eight features on Red Bubble in 2013. And that would be this image of the old Washburn Mill (currently Doner Studio at the Mill) and Lower Brewers Locks on the Cataraqui river in Kingston, Ontario.


Clicking on any of the above images will bring you to my RedBubble pages where one could, if they so desired, purchase the images as a Greeting Cards, Matted, Laminated, Mounted, Canvas or Framed Prints and Posters.

Please feel free to leave comments.

Thanks for looking. And please stop by again

RedBubble Features - February 2013 - week 1

A rarity!! A new blog post from me.

Most of my photography efforts of late have been focused on my participation on RedBubble. So I thought I might use my blog posts to highlight some my RedBubble activities. Today's post is about those images of mine that were featured in a group on RedBubble.

February 2012 has so far been an extraordinary month for features, so to keep this post from going on forever, it will only highlight those images featured from 1 February to 7 February.

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1940 Studebaker

Featured in the group:
- 'Preserving History' on 1 February 2013

Portland Head Light

Featured in the group:
- 'Americas – Rural, Urban, Wild and Free' on 2 February 2013

Great Mormon butterfly

Featured in the groups:
- 'Just Fun' on 2 February 2013
- 'Shutterbugs' on 2 February 2013,
- 'Insects, Bugs and Creepy Crawlies' on 4 February 2013,
- 'A World of EOS' on 4 February 2013
- 'The Wonder of Wings' on 6 February 2013.

Red Door - selective colour

Featured in the group:
- 'Windows and Doors Only' on 2 February 2013

Engine 1095

Featured in the group:
- 'Old Things are Vintage' on 3 February 2013.

Chinese Lantens

Featured in the groups:
- 'The World As We See It, or as we missed it' on 3 February 2013
- 'Low Light – Dark Background Photography' on 6 February 2013

Getting on in years

Featured in the group:
- 'The World As We See It , or as we missed it' on 3 February 2013.

Dog Roses

Featured in the groups:
- The World As We See It, or as we missed it on 3 February 2013
- Gorgeous Flower Cards on 5 February 2013

The Pier

Featured in the group:
- 'Perfect Harmonies' on 4 February 2013.

White Morpho II

Featured in the group:
- 'The World As We See It, or as we missed it' on 5 February 2013

Clipper

Featured in the group:
- 'Closeups in Nature' on 6 February 2013.

Pemaquid Lighthouse - watercolour

Featured in the group:
- 'Nautical ~ Waves of Joy' on 6 February 2013

River Erriff #1

Featured in the group:
- 'Nature’s Paintbrush' on 6 February 2013

Who called this meeting, anyway?

Featured in the group:
- 'Canadiana' on 7 February 2013

Western Brook Pond

Featured in the group:
- 'The World As We See It, or as we missed it' on 7 February 2013

1954 Pontiac Laurentian 2 door Hardtop

Featured in the group:
- 'The World As We See It, or as we missed it' on 7 February 2013

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As I said at the start, February on RedBubble has been extraordinary. In just the first week, 16 images received 22 features. And there was a lot more activity in the remaining three weeks, but I'll leave that for future posts.

Clicking on any of the above images will bring you to my my RedBubble pages where one could, if they so desired, purchase the above images as Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, Laminated Prints, Mounted Prints, Canvas Prints, Framed Prints and Posters.

Please feel free to leave comments here on the blog, in my Guestbook or in the photo gallery.

Thanks for looking. And please stop by again

Line Art

Wikipedia defines line art as "any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a (usually plain) background, without gradations in shade (darkness) or hue (color) to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects. Line art can use lines of different colors, although line art is usually monochromatic."

It goes on to say, "Line art emphasizes form and outline, over color, shading, and texture. However, areas of solid pigment and dots can also be used in addition to lines. The lines in a piece of line art may be all of a constant width (as in some pencil drawings), of several (few) constant widths (as in technical illustrations), or of freely varying widths (as in brush work or engraving).

"Before the development of photography and of halftones, line art was the standard format for illustrations to be used in print publications, using black ink on white paper. Using either stippling or hatching, shades of gray could also be simulated."

I love the simplicity that line art shows. I learned a while back to create digital line art images based on original photos using PaintShop Pro. Here are a few I've created over the past several years.

First, some B&W versions . . .

Blomidon Inn - Wolfville, Nova Scotia

St Benoit du Lac Abbey, Austin, Quebec

Sometimes adding a single colour adds interest . . .

Yellow tulips II
Dianthus
Then there's Sepia toning . . .

Indian Harbour, Nova Scotia
Hotel Nelson, Place Jacques Cartier, Old Montreal
Or you can go full bore with a multi-coloured version. . .

St. Paul's Anglican Church, Trinity, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland
Grand Hotel - Malahide, Co. Dublin, Ireland

Whatever your preference, I hope you found at least one image to your liking.

Remember that clicking on any image on this page will open the image in my Smugmug site, where you can view a larger version. Please use your browser's "Back" button to return to the Blog.

Other Line Art images can be seen in my Line Art images gallery. Please feel free to leave comments here on the blog, in my Guestbook or in the photo gallery.

Thanks for looking. And please stop by again.

First visit this year to the Longueuil Regional Park

Longueuil Regional Park
With such an early Spring this year, I decided to visit the Regional Park in Longueuil to see what it had to offer. Things are really greening-up

One thing I noticed that was different this year from previous years was the number of Canada Geese.

Canada Geese
I'd not seen more than three or four geese in the past. This year I saw easily six geese in various areas of the Park.

Mallard Drake
Another oddity was I only saw one set of Mallard ducks. Usually there are easily a half a dozen in the ponds and the marsh.

But one thing is for certain, the Park is greening up quite well and I look forward to many more visits this year.

Meandering Creek
Hope you enjoyed the photos.

Remember that clicking on any image on this page will open the image in my Smugmug site, where you can view a larger version. Please use your browser's "Back" button to return to the Blog.

Other images taken in during my visit to the Regional Park can be seen in my Longueuil Regional Park - 2010 galleries.

Please feel free to leave comments here on the blog, in my Guestbook or in the photo gallery.

Thanks for looking. And please stop by again.

Spring has Sprung!

The weather has been so much warmer than normal that the flowers have become confused and are sprouting up almost everywhere.

Took a walk around my area yesterday (19 March 2010) and took a few photos of early signs of Spring.
Crocus
Even along the St Lawrence river, all the snow and ice has disappeared. Admittedly everything is still very brown. But if the temperatures continue as they have been, it will soon be green.

Along the St Lawrence river

Hope you enjoyed the photos.

Remember that clicking on any image on this page will open the image in my Smugmug site, where you can view a larger version. Please use your browser's "Back" button to return to the Blog.

Other images taken on my walk around the area can be seen in my Flowers - 2010 and General Southshore Images galleries.

Please feel free to leave comments here on the blog, in my Guestbook or in the photo gallery.

Thanks for looking. And please stop by again.

Orton-izing your images

Something a little different for today's post. A while back in one of the newsgroups I participate in, we had fun Orton-izing images. Orton-izing images or applying what is called the Orton Effect, is a technique originally created by Canadian photographer Michael Orton.

Mr. Orton has published a book called "Photographing Creative Landscapes". A very interesting preview of the book including some of his photos and explanation of how he created them can be found on Google Book search. Click here to see the preview.

A small portfolio gallery of his images can be seen here.

There are a number of sites found on the web that talk about the Orton Effect and how to reproduce it on your own images. One of the better ones in my opinion can be seen here.

The hard part in creating an Orton-ized image is not in the creation process but rather in finding a image where the process works.

In most photo editing software that supports layers, you can Orton-ize your image as follows.

1. duplicate original layer.
2. set blend mode of duplicate to 'Screen'.
3. merge down.
4. duplicate layer, setting blend mode to 'Multiply'.
5. apply Gaussian blur to duplicate layer using a value between 15 to 50. I tend to use 35 for my images.
6. Create an HSL adjustment layer. Here you can increase or decrease the saturation until you achieve the desired effect. Again from personal experience I find I like increased saturation (15-30 values). The main exception to this is when there is a great deal of Red in the image. This is when I will decrease the saturation a bit.

There are times when the resultant image looks dark. The quick and simple fix is to duplicate the lower layer (the one that was a result of merging the two layers with Screen blend mode) and set its blend mode to 'Screen'. A second and more precise method would be to add a Curves layer where you can tweak just the darks and shadows.

The following are some of the images I have created following the above steps.













Hope you found today's topic interesting and enjoyable.

Remember that clicking on any image on this page will open a larger version. Use your browser's "back" button to return to the Blog.

Other photos that I've applied this process to can be seen in my Digtal Effects - Orton-ized gallery.

Please feel free to leave comments here on the blog or in any of the photo galleries.

Thanks for looking. And stop by again.