The sun has got his hat on...

This weekend seemed to herald the start of Spring - with just a few days to go until the clocks change a couple of gorgeous warm days certainly makes the weekend go faster. Once a bit of sun appears the masses seem to descend on all those places that I've enjoyed peace and quiet at for the last several months - hoards of people with dogs who seem to have hibernated all year suddenly hit the Forest. But for my girls it's business as usual...

Even my little nemesis the Mandarin ducks were in a good mood - paddling demurely across the lake just nipping into range for a cute picture.

A little bit of sun is also the perfect chance to grab a few pictures of some colourful displays popping up in the garden - all of which seem to have survived being stomped by Newfie paws! Primroses... these ones grow wild in the garden...

The odd stray dandelion...

And a gorgeous Magnolia  - this one is a Stellata.

Of course it all turned out too good to be true and this morning saw a return to dreary weather... which inturn sees the return of indoor photos taken this evening... hey ho!

In happier news though I've just found a batch re-size feature on Photoshop Elements that has just speeded up blogging no end!

I leave you with a quick page (mostly using last months Studio Calico kit)

Phast Photoshop....

I like to ideally get my photos right in camera, but sometimes situations with high levels of contrast (like a dark dog on a sunny day in a reflective or light environment like a pond) it can be tricky to get correct exposure of the light and the dark areas...

The focus of this picture (if you excuse the pun!) is Martha and to get good exposure of her, and to retain her facial detail etc, it meant over-exposing the background. I'm more than willing to use photoshop to enhance my pictures, but sometimes I don't have the time or inclination to use levels, curves etc. etc. to get a great result... however the good news is that Photoshop Elements has a few clever little tricks up it's sleeves.

I'm going to show you how to use the Shadows and Highlights tool to get a uber-fast quick fix. The defaults in the tool however are shockingly bad! They give a wholy unnatural look so you'll have to use those scary sliders!

(You can click on all these pics to get a closer look at the steps you need to take!)

So first i've done a small crop just to make the composition a bit more pleasing to my eye.

Next go to 'Enhance' on the toolbar followed by 'Adjust Lighting' and then 'Shadows and Highlights'

As I said the default that the tool suggests is ghastly! I don't want any lightening of the darker regions... I've already exposed correctly for these thanks very much Mr Adobe! It's the highlights we want to tame a tad!

So instead move the 'Lighten Shadows' slider back over to the left to 0%, then move the 'Darken Highlights' slider to the right.. you'll need to use your judgement on this one... but don't go crazy or you'll get an unnatural look. I've gone to 33% on this one.

And that's it... a subtle but effective tweak in a couple of minutes! This tool won't extract detail from totally blown out areas, but it can pull some warmth and detail from some overexposed bits!

Hope this might be useful to someone!