What a great shot. I'm going to paint it with Corel just to see the different effects I can pull out.

Thanks for that.

This is a single male Garganey duck (Anas querquedula). A small dabbling duck rated as code -4 by the American Birding Association; rarer than rare. Seen just three times in North America in past fifty years.

This is the FIRST time in Wisconsin. My son Max and I took this photo this afternoon at the Crex Meadow
game preserve, just north of Grantsburg WI. on May 6, 2014.

This shot was hand-held using a Panasonic FZ200 'Bridge' camera on Aperture priority, f2.8, 1/1000 shutter speed and 1200mm with digital zoom. It was all luck and could not have happened without the abilities of this camera. So many others were trying to get a shot that the bird was nervous and hard to catch.

Garganey duck-Grantsburg Wisconsin

(Download)

That, my friend is the best bridge camera out there. An Englishman, Graham Houghton has done many videos about its features (on You Tube) and I can attest to its functionality and versatility. Not only is it lightweight, but it also shoots 12 megapixel RAW-which is large enough for what I do. Anyone interested in a bridge camera should definitely check this one out.

This is an example of what you can do with an old photo and a Painting program. Here I used Corel Painter Essentials 4 to reproduce and enhance this old rail car that was taken in Superior Wisconsin Rail yard in 1984. It was scanned and sat for years on a hard drive until I thought why not try to give it some new life. So here it is-

Original 35 mm film picture scanned

(Download)

After painting-

(Download)

Here's the second photo painted with Corel PE4. This is just my adjustments to change the season to either earlier in the fall or spring time. I really like this photo and only added the various colors in experimentation with painting. I have a lot to learn yet and appreciate your submissions. Thank you.

P.S. The hardest part of this painting was cloning out the car and for sale sign on the tree.

Painted color emphasized with Corel PE4

Hi Bloke- here's my rendition of your most excellent capture.
I downloaded your color photo as is and then used Corel Painter Essentials 4 to paint it using a Sargent brush. I let the program run until I liked it, then I used a soft cloner brush for some minor details and followed that up with a hard cloner for specifics. Then I added water color washes of varying hues and intensities, ( I may have gotten carried away with the added leaves on the foreground tree) Then I added some further color variations and finally felt satisfied.
Your photos are awesome and these type sheds are my favorite type of photo painting. Keep em coming friend.

Painted photo-using Corel Painter Essentials 4

That's too funny! :P

Wonderful model with a definitely open attitude. Lets you capture the true essence of her qualities. I really like your approach and composition. :wink:

Nice "lead in" and composition. Certainly well done. :thumbup:

Awesome perspective and grouping, well done! :thumbup:

Very nice captures. Love the idea of helping out our feathered friends during the cold winter months. :thumbup:

I get shivers just looking at it. Wonderful portrayal of the desolation and isolation of the prairies. Great capture and color saturation. :thumbup:

The second photo is definitely the better of the two. The background looks almost like fireworks and "the rockets red glare" really nice conversion from "everyday" pictures we see all the time. Keep up the experimentation and you will be pleasantly surprised-hence 5 stars!

Really nice capture!