I spent all day today at a “Maximum Photoshop” seminar, taught by Dave Cross, and I’m hoping my brain will retain at least 50% of the staggering amount of information given in the demonstrations. It was pretty amazing. Here’s a very basic example of what I learned:

This is the same photo I posted a couple of days ago, except this time it has a vignette or burnt-in edges effect. The exciting (to me) thing about this, is that I had no idea (doh!) that there was a masks palette in Photoshop which allowed you to make editable adjustments to masks. Editable! Woo-hoo! I know this makes no sense if you’re not having your own love affair with Photoshop, so I’ll stop now.

Tom says that the real thing to notice in this photo is that Emma has a leg-up on Toby.

There’s been nothing very exciting happening around here lately. But that’s okay. I shun excitement.

Look, here’s Emma ignoring Toby’s rule about Single-Cat-Occupancy-of-the-Tower. He’s taking the rule-breakage pretty well.

Here they are again, responding to a sudden noise.

Emma’s look says: That sound worries me greatly.

Toby’s look says: That’s the buzzer on the stove. In five minutes, I’ll saunter to the kitchen and see what’s being dished up.

I check out the Sartorialist’s blog at least once a week, mostly because it’s entertaining, but partially in the hopes that some sense of style will rub off on me. It hasn’t so far. Denim and polar fleece are the staples of my wardrobe…and if wearing socks with sandals is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Anyway. The Sartorialist has been posting some vintage photos lately, and I decided to steal his idea for today. Except he is posting actual vintage photos of actual people, and I’m posting a contemporary (I took this last summer) photo of a dog, which I’ve photoshopped, hoping to make it look older than it is. Which is clearly not in the spirit of what the Sartorialist is doing.

Still and all, this dog has style.

Man, I cannot believe I was lucky enough to capture this image of Planet Ballard. Isn’t it glorious up there in the night-time sky?

Wait…what’s this?

This cat is probably meditating on the seemingly impossible concept that, while he himself is lying on a sidewalk in Ballard, Ballard is also lying on the sidewalk before him. Does this mean he is in two places at once? Is he, at the same time, both very large, and very, very small? If he gave Planet Ballard a might whack with his paw and sent it spinning into the street, would his tiny Planet Ballard self get motion sickness and throw up his breakfast? Does this mean he had two breakfasts this morning? Good grief, life is confusing sometimes.

I’ve been celebrating the beginning of spring by going out and taking pictures.

There’s a crow in this tree.

Here’s a blurry close-up.

And another one.

This crow is apparently celebrating spring with a serving of catsup.

I’d want fries with that.

I had so much fun making my Rose Garden Panorama — letting Photoshop do all the work — that I wanted to try it again.

So. Tom and I had been walking, walking, walking along Elliott Ave. W., with constant traffic whooshing by. After a while of that, we turned left on W. Mercer Pl. and saw this little pathway into Lower Kinnear Park. Traffic sounds fell away…and look…a vertical panorama!

This was made from three different shots. Before they were photomerged, I rotated each picture 90 degrees clockwise and saved the file. Then, Photoshop merged the three into a seamless whole. Magic! At which point I rotated the merged version 90 degrees counterclockwise, returning the whole thing to an upright state.

We used to have a strange-looking eye magnet that Tom found somewhere. It disappeared, as did several other refrigerator magnets, soon after Emma arrived at our house. Emma? Do you have some explaining to do?

I just read “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” by Garth Stein. The narrator is Enzo, a loyal, wise, and funny dog who believes that in his next life he’ll be reincarnated as a human.

Meanwhile, Enzo’s current family includes a little girl named Zoe — who has a lot of stuffed animals.

I know that this dog doesn’t look like the Enzo described in the story, but if you buy into the idea of one Enzo, it’s not much of a stretch to start believing in others.

I’m still working through Photoshop tutorials. This one was really cool: “Vintage Typewriter Keys,” by Felix Nelson, in the March 2010 issue of Photoshop User magazine. I’ve never actually seen typewriter keys like these…it almost seems like I’ve seen jewelry with this kind of look though. Maybe the jewelry was made from old typewriter keys?

Anyway, the typewriter keys were pretty impressive, but they still seemed to need something more. Like maybe a picture of Toby? This is the head-shot that Toby submitted when he auditioned for the lead role in a local stage production of “The Great Gatsby.”