The Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) ranks high on my list of favourite birds. The one pictured below was fishing along Grindstone Creek when I spotted him/her. There were a few Ospreys working the Creek that morning, and I saw one lose a prized catch to a juvenile Bald Eagle. Unfortunately, the encounter was too far away for my lens to do justice to it.
Nikon D300 DSLR, Nikkor AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/4 IF-ED + Nikon 1.7 X teleconverter
500mm, ISO 280, 1/800 sec. at f/6.7 – handheld
Acommon question I see in forums on the Web is how to quickly add a border around a photograph. This isn’t surprising, of course, because borders can make a big difference to the look of a photograph. For Photoshop users, adding borders is easy—I happen to use Adobe Photoshop CS4. A similar technique can be used with any image processing software that has the ability to increase the canvas size and colour of an image.
After adding a border, I sometimes increase the canvas size at the bottom of the image so that I can add a copyright notice, title and description to my photograph.
Follow these steps to make your image stand out from the rest of the page with a border of any colour you choose.
Step 1
Start up Photoshop and open the image to which you want a border added.
Step 2
To create a border around the entire picture, open the “Select menu” and choose “Select All.” If you only want to create a border around a certain area of the image, use the Selection tool in the toolbar to select the area.
Step 3
From the “Select menu,” choose “Modify” and then “Border.” In the dialog box, choose the size in pixels you want your border to be.
Step 4
Locate the colour palette on the left-hand side of the screen (foreground/background squares near the bottom of the toolbar). Click on the top (foreground) square and select a colour for your border from the pop-up palette. Then click OK.
Step 5
Select “Fill” from the “Edit menu.” In the dialog box, choose the options to apply to the border, i.e., colour, blending mode and opacity.
Step 6
Click OK to view the border.
If you don’t like the results, simply use “Undo” from the “Edit menu” to remove the fill colour and effect and try again until the border looks the way you want.
Step 7
Finally, remember to use the “Save As” command in the “File menu” to save the new version of your photograph.
Denisé and I spent Monday with friends at Washburn Island, which is at the end of a peninsular jutting into Lake Scugog in the heart of Ontario. Our friends have a lovely house overlooking the lake, and for most of the afternoon we were entertained by a very friendly chipmunk.
We had placed several peanuts on the rail of their deck to attract Blue Jays so I could photograph them. These quickly got the attention of the little Chippie, who spent hours collecting nuts and just being adorable.
Nikon D300 DSLR, Nikkor AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/4 IF-ED + Nikon 1.7 X teleconverter
500mm, ISO 800, 1/640 sec. at f/6.7 – handheld
The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is one of nature’s finest, and although the male gets the most notice for his brilliant colour, the females are beautiful in their own right. Here’s a female taking some seed on the boardwalk at the Royal Botanical Garden at Burlington, Ontario.
This Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) was seen at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Burlington, ON, Canada. A big noisy bird, but few rival its beauty.
Nikon D300 DSLR, Nikkor AF VR Zoom Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED
310mm, ISO 220, 1/400 sec at f/6.3 - handheld
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