Yesterday my family spent the morning at Round Valley Reservoir or what we refer to as “The Lake.” My dad’s boat hasn’t been made seaworthy since it was made winter-worthy in December, so we all relaxed on the shore. My mom, brother and I read, while my dad fished, and Tex frolicked along the shore.
My dad caught two beautiful brown Trout. One was big enough to keep, but he eventually threw it back because it wouldn’t have been enough for all of us. I had to laugh because as soon as my dad had one on the line, both my brother and I whipped out our cameras or in Erik’s case, camera phone. My dad goes fishing at least once a week in a decent-enough weather, but it’s always a photo opportunity when we get to see him catch one. Those fish probably felt like celebrities, with my family playing the part of the annoying paparazzi.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the perfect settings to get the photos I wanted at the lake. It was weirdly lit, cloudy but extremely bright, add the reflection of the water and I just couldn’t get my settings where I wanted, quickly enough. Luckily there’s always a chance to make something out of nothing with the help of an editing program. Picnik, the website I usually use to edit my photos is closing in three days, so last night I decided to try picMonkey. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. It has all the basic editing options plus a ton of extra special effects. For these photos, after a few basic edits to color saturation and exposure, I chose one of the presets under papyrus. It gave the photos a grainy quality I enjoy. Unfortunately, there is no collage feature on picMonkey yet, which irks me, that was my favorite thing to use.
I appreciate the fact that I was able to get some decent photos of the memories I made, despite less-than-steller camera skills. It was a treat to go to the lake for the morning with my family. We were all happy to be there together, but Tex was perhaps the happiest. However, no one was happy when my dad and I washed him and I found FOUR ticks in the process. It was really disgusting, but I guess it was a small price to pay for all the fun we had at the lake.
These photos are absolutely beautiful. So glad you got to spend some time with your family outdoors!
Thanks Rose! It was some calmer time, during what was otherwise, a quite productive weekend!
Wow, you are really having tick problems down your way this year, aren’t you. I heard this also from a gardener on Twitter.
Must pass on your useful information about photo-editing sites to daughter dear, who likes to play with all the flower photos she can.
Yes! The ticks are already out like crazy, definitely one of the major disadvantages to having such a warm winter. Hope your daughter finds the website useful!
Have you tried Gimp? I’ve been meaning to sit down with it and put together a few image editing tutorials – I’ve heard it’s a good (free) alternative to Photoshop!
No I haven’t tried that. I tried PicMonkey and one other, I can’t recall it’s name. I liked the appearance of PicMonkey, but I’ll definitely check out Gimp, maybe it has a collage tool! Do you use photoshop for your editting? (I need to take a class or two, so I can figure photoshop out.) I’d love for you to do a photo-editing how to!