Faded beauty

I was tidying up in the garden today when I realised that some of the plants, although past their prime, were still very eye catching. Since most people do not bother to admire a flower except when it is perfect I decided to share the things that caught my attention this afternoon.

First the red Eucalyptus tree that I am hoping will grow to be a massive and brilliant specimen tree - but at present is only a couple of pretty branches that reach up about two metres. The fluffy flowers have about finished and the cups that hold the growing seed are left. They create a different sort of display which is attractive.

The stunning heads of blue from the many Agapanthus that were clumped together in the front garden have lost their petals and now are green bunches of seed pods. Most of these I have already cut off and put on the compost heap but a few have been left to provide a sculptural interest in the garden.

Replacing the Agapanthus and Eucalyptus blue and red are many heads of a very tall and severely dangerous (lots of hooked spikes along the sides of the long leaves) Bromiliad. The flowers that come from each of those bulbous tips are quite uninspiring but the huge heads that you see here stay looking like this for weeks and most people who come to visit stop and admire them. So even though the plant is past its prime it is still very attractive.

The pollen producing body of the male cycad has dried out and the seeds have been dispersed but this pendulous shape will stay like this for several weeks before breaking up and needs to be cut away. Again this is the end of the plant's usefulness and yet I will keep it where it is because I like it!

Finally the seed pods that hang from one of the Cassia trees. Actually the Cassia are a real pest - they pop up in the lawns everywhere and have to be mown down or pulled out or we would soon have a forest of them. But the seed pods have their own beauty - the flowers are pretty - like lots of yellow buttercups - but the seed pods with their fluffy soft seed coverings now adorn the trees and while they look attractive I can visualise all those seeds floating in the wind and landing all over the back and front gardens!

For those of you who are interested to know how I took these pictures and managed to get such a soft background, I used the 55-300mm lens at full zoom. I also set the Aperture to a small "F" stop to ensure a narrow depth of field. Since many of you prefer to use a compact camera - just use the zoom to get close and throw the background out of focus.
Notice how I managed to get something dark behind the subject? This helps to push the subject to the foreground and grab the viewers attention. A bright sky background or a house or fence even, would take that attention to the background. It takes a bit of practice but if you can see what is behind the subject before you take your shot you will get a much better photograph - sometimes moving a few inches to one side improves the way your shot will look.
AJ

Night flowering tree

After spending the entire day working in the kitchen, by evening I was feeling pretty warm so I took my cup of tea outside onto the veranda and sat down in the cool to enjoy it. The light was about gone from the sky but it wasn't completely dark and I was able to see that the tree the lorikeets fly into during the day was covered with white flowers. I was aware that the flowers only came out in the evening but I had not been outside to see it happening.

2 seconds      F/8     ISO 800

The tree was decorated with white flowers  from top to toe. There must be very little nectar in the flowers because they do not attract the fruit bats - fruit bats are night nectar and fruit eaters. And the honey eaters and lorikeets are not interested in flying around in the dark, so birds do not pollinate these flowers. So there must be insects that do that work.
It seems a shame that such attractive flowers should bloom only at night and fall to the ground before daylight.

                                                              3 seconds       F/8     ISO 800
I am surprised that these pictures came out as well as they did because it was too dark to focus - so focus was pure guesswork! AND there was a slight breeze blowing so the two and three seconds I took to take each photograph meant that the tree and flowers had to be completely still - or completely blurred!
My last image shows that some of the flowers have fallen off already - they really are short lived.

                                                                   3 seconds       F/8     ISO 800
I should look up and find out what this tree is. The birds brought it into my garden and I transplanted it in the grove of trees just across from the veranda. Until now I had no need to know its name!
Now that I have had my little break I had better get myself back into the kitchen and tidy up!
AJ

Tying the knot

Today I used the camera even though I was a guest. A young friend had invited me to her wedding ceremony and I did warn her that I was so attached to my camera that it went everywhere with me! The shots I managed to take haven't turned out too badly - the sky was rather white and ultra difficult because of its glaryness  (is there such a word?) but since I take all my photos in RAW I am able to rescue over bright bits (sometimes not so well if there is too much over exposure). I have not had to throw any of my shots away so I guess you can say I managed!
The young bride and groom had a photographer for the day - a stony faced young woman who never smiled once all afternoon. She also did not take one shot from any other height than eye level. That surprised me. It is so easy to vary shots by holding the camera high or low or even by standing on a small platform to look down. She was less than half my age and I never saw her bend down once.
I was not in competition with the photographer. I kept well out of the way and just had fun with the camera - zipping in to sit on one of the front seats to get a prime position! The ducking back out to the side to get the guests watching.
This is one of the shots from the day.

I will put all the pictures into an album so they can be shared by the newly weds with their guests - and I can share them with you! I do not sell my pictures, I just take them because I enjoy taking them.
AJ

Gifts from the clouds

After a few really hot days "something" had to give - and it was both the temperature and the dry that "gave". For absolutely months now my patient husband has been watering my garden morning and night. We have had precious little rainfall since June - just a couple of days when we had showers. That changed this morning. I had just cleared up the driveway after covering it with a thick layer of grass and weeds, pulled out of my gardens when I chanced to look up and noticed the black sky creeping up. Cleaning up was put into high gear and the garden tools stored back in the garage by the time the first rumble of thunder happened. By the time I had showered and changed the rain was pelting down.

1/160sec   F/4.2    ISO 200

I suddenly remembered my son's washing on the line and raced out to rescue it and put it in the clothes dryer - the fine spray from the impact of the rain on the ground had saturated everything! I came upstairs and spotted our friendly lorikeet looking very bedraggled on the cage over the food dished - the dishes were all filled with rainwater so held nothing of interest for her.

1/60sec      F 4.2   ISO 200

I took pity and put a small dish of raw sugar on the table - about half a teaspoon full - and looked out later to see the bird and her mate, tucking in with ecstasy written all over them!
A look out the back door and I had to grab the camera again, our rainwater tank was full and running over.

1/20 sec   F 5.6   ISO 200

Not only was the rainwater tank running over but the roof guttering was running over too.

1/20 sec   F 5.6   ISO 200

One thing I have forbidden my nearly 72 year old husband to do is to get up on the roof to clear the gutters! We have a two storey house and that is a long way to fall.
So we have had enough rain in one hour to fill our water tank, top up the swimming pool and wash the dirt and remaining weeds off the drive. We have also had enough rain (33mm in one hour) to ensure that we shall have green grass for Christmas - and lots of noise from mowers on Boxing Day! Its "all good" as my son is want to say!
AJ

White on the top

The past few days have been "stinking hot" with very high humidity so when I came across the pictures from my holiday in New Zealand I felt so much cooler! My visit was in Autumn and the cold had not yet descended to road level - a perfect time for travel in that country. The trees are in their colourful glory and you can explore without having to be weighted down by heavy clothing.
It was the following two photographs that brought my temperature down.

As we drove along we could see that the snow was just starting to settle on the top of the alps. This is in the Mount Cook range of mountain tops but I am afraid that I have no idea of the names of the peaks

I have a feeling that the peak shown in this second picture is that of Mount Cook. To see the pictures more clearly click on one and it will open in a new page.
The South Island of New Zealand is a photographer's paradise, it is filled with lakes, rives, mountains and glorious scenery, the coastline is stunning and there is so much variety in landscape in such a small (half of a) country.
I definitely feel a lot cooler!
AJ

Lighting the tree

Yesterday I was given a rather unusual present - well it wasn't really for me, it was for the Christmas tree.
Chinese technology is so much fun and so inexpensive! This gadget that is giving me so much pleasure is a little electronic box that directs a laser light show on to hard surfaces. The colours thrown are the colours of Christmas - red, green and yellow so we set it up to hit the Christmas tree. This is how it looks

camera details       3sec        f/7.1      ISO 200       26mm

Once I had started to use the camera I wanted more pictures so I moved in a little closer. With a slow shutter speed I expected to get a lot of blur from the moving lights so I was a little surprised at how sharp they turned out.

camera details       1.6 sec       f/7.1      ISO 200       55mm

A big fad at the moment is to capture "bokeh". Bokeh is the name given to the radically out of focus effect on lights. This effect is best when there is something in the foreground that is in focus and the pattern of lights are behind.

camera details       2 sec       f/7.1      ISO 200       50mm

And one more bokeh shot of the lights

camera details       2 sec       f/7.1      ISO 200       55mm

The laser light cannot be left on all day, the recommendation is to turn the thing off after a couple of hours to allow it to cool down. So most of the time we shall be illuminating the tree with the regular tree lights and when we have visitors we shall turn on the special effects!
AJ

Back to sharing and teaching

At long last I have returned to my blogspot to write and share some of my pictures and experiences with anyone who cares to take a look. For the past month I have been posting pictures on a daily basis to Google+ which is an open networking/social media site. Although I take photographs of many different things I chose to share birds and landscapes. All well and good - the Google+ interface allowed the photographs to be viewed in good quality and I was uploading mine at 2000 pixels on the largest side so they did look good in spite of the 72 dpi resolution! However I have chosen to stop this daily dabble and return to my blog page - because I like to write. Reactions in Google+ are two words long, usually and there are no questions or reactions to anything that is written so VERY frustrating.
I know, there are no questions or reactions to anything written in these pages either - but at least I can enjoy the presentation myself - and look back on earlier postings and share the stories with my email friends. I do hear about my postings via email and that way I can interact about the topic that was covered or give additional information to anyone who has not quite understood a tutorial.
I will now try and add something to these pages each day. It may be long it could be very short, it may be about something done ages ago or it may be a travel diary as I explore the world. This is my page and I will be as inconsistent as I am in real life!

Barking owl - Ninox connivens

One thing I will attempt to avoid is personal stuff! Breathe easy! You will not see much of the family here - but you may glimpse my husband occasionally since he always accompanies me on my trips. He sometimes gets in the way of the camera!!!
On a recent visit to Currumbin Sanctuary on the Gold Coast of Australia, I took along my Nikon D90 and had the sense to take the 55-300mm lens along as well as the standard 18-50mm, so I was able to use the full zoom (300mm) to isolate the birds from their backgrounds. You can tell from the patterning in the background to the Barking Owl that this is a captive bird - what you cannot tell is that heavy mesh was between the camera lens and the bird. The spaces between the wires was about 3cms so it was not possible to thread the lens through the gaps - also there was a no-go space between the cage and the footpath. That is why manual focus had to be used, if I had used automatic focus this would be a photograph of the wire with a dark shape behind it. Deliberately focusing on the birds made the near wires evaporate and the narrow depth of field I had chosen made sure that the wires in the background were not so visible either.
If you are using a compact camera that has a good zoom on it, you too would be able to do this - but you will need to check in your camera manual on how to manipulate the focus. If you are using a tripod (highly recommended for this sort of shot) you will have time to tweak the focus. A bird, such as an owl, keeps quite still for a long period of time. You just have to wait for the eyes to open!
AJ

November display

This morning when I looked out of my kitchen window my breath was taken away with the beauty on show by one little garden tree. Yesterday there were one or two flowers on it but this morning it was smothered with them,

The remarkable thing about this particular Tibouchina is that the petals are different shades of pink. This was originally a cutting given to me by a friend. It was taken off a white tibouchina (as was the other cutting which has turned out to be purple). This TIbouchina is Tibouchina Mutabilis - a known hybrid of the genus so why it should have grown from a cutting from a completely different tree I have no idea!!
Here is a closer look (It is worth taking a closer look!)

If you were to click on the picture you will be rewarded with a larger image. So much easier to see.
The individual florets have distinctive angular stamens. The wild birds do not show any interest in the flowers nor have I noticed many insects of them either. Maybe the pollination is done by the wind.

I have two other Tibouchina varieties in my garden and neither is showing signs of being as covered with flowers as this one - of the other two, one is the dark purple variety and the other a rich pink.
I thought that Spring was an exciting time for colour in my garden but this month which is the end of spring, is proving to be just as exciting.
AJ

How to use a very useful filter

I have recently downloaded a free filter from http://yaelmaritz.com/extras.php that I thought might be handy when I have photographs with horribly blown out white skies. Today I have had a chance to play with that filter and since the picture I chose was far too complex for my usual methods of replacing skies I thought I might share the steps I took. You may find them useful when you come to try this yourself. (I work with Photoshop Elements 9)
Here is the picture I worked with. As you can see, the sky is filled with white clouds which were very bright. The camera had been set to brighten the bird and so made the background even more dazzling. This meant that the photo has stayed in my collection and as never been shown to anyone.

With all those twigs and leaves you can understand how difficult it may be to replace the background so lets see what my new "Kill white" filter will do.
First of all I created a duplicate layer (Ctrl + J).
Since there is white in the bird and in the twigs that are in focus I needed to make sure the filter did not remove any white from them. So I selected them. To do this I chose the Quick Selection Tool and made sure that the tool was set to add to the selection.

Now I stroked along the bird and the thin branches and the leaves making sure that I was including all the elements that I did not want to have any white removed. The soft focus and minor twiggy bits I did not save. Then I clicked on the "subtract from the selection button (to the right of the one the red arrow is pointing to) and removed from selecting the bits of sky between the bird and the twig that had been included. I had to zoom in tight to see what I was doing. Because the selection had taken time to refine I didn't want to lose it so I clicked on Select (Menu bar) and then on "Save Selection" and gave a name as requested by the drop down box. "bird"
After doing that I realised that I needed to have a blue sky to replace the white that I was going to remove. It was just as well the selection had been saved because now I have to "deselect" !
After clicking on the "eye" on the left of the layer to make it invisible, I clicked on the background layer in the Layers Palette and then added a blank layer by clicking on the "create a new layer" button (hover over the buttons and text will appear).
With a light shade of sky blue and a very light shade of the same colour I then used the gradient tool to create the sky - drag from about a third of the way down from the top right down to the bottom of the picture area with the darker colour to be at the top. If it is lighter at the top than the bottom just Ctrl +Z to undo what you have done and change the background and foreground colours by clicking on the tiny two way arrow, then drag down the image again.
Click on the empty box to replace the "eye" (the visibility) for the layer. The bird picture now hides the sky layer. Now to use that new filter! First of all I needed to put my selection around the bird and branches so I clicked on "Select" then on "Load Selection" and said "OK" to the bird selection. I I now applied the filter it would affect inside that selection - that was not what I wanted! Click on Select and then on "Inverse" to change the selection to the sky area.

 

This is what happened next.

How amazing is that? But there is a problem. There are a few little bits that were missed. The red arrows point to two of them. Time for another little technique.
Now I needed to create a mask and paint away those white bits.

When a mask is put onto a layer the background and foreground colours in the tools palette change to black and white. The black needs to be the forground colour. Use the little two way arrows to change it if white is the foreground colour. I had to zoom in very tight to see what I was doing and with a small soft edged brush painted away those white bits.

The results are worth it.

The picture needs to be flattened before it can be saved as a .jpg.

You can flatten in a few ways, right click in the layers palette and click Flatten Image or click on the symbol indicated in the image above and then click on Flatten Image OR go to the menu bar and click on Layer then on Flatten Image.
If I put the before and after images side by side you can see the difference.

Do you think you could improve one of your images the same way? I suggest you download the Killwhite filter, follow the instructions that come with it to install it in your program and see if you can follow my steps. If you have photos of skies (I have many!) one could be resized and used in place of the gradient layer.
If you have problems, drop me a line joanren@gmail.com
Have fun!
AJ

Creating a sketch from a photograph

It would be really nice if there was an easy way of creating a line drawing from a photograph. I have downloaded filters, used various filters in Photoshop and have tried many stand alone programs that aim to create line drawings.
Here is my photograph.

an here is the line drawing from the best of the downloaded programs I have tried - this one called "Fotosketcher"

The results are not brilliant - the colour sketch was impressive but was not the line drawing I was after.
So, I resolved to create a sketch that I could give to my grandchildren to colour-in.

 This is the sketch that I made from the photograph.
Here are the steps I took to do that.
To begin with I created a blank layer above the original photograph. (Ctrl+J in Photoshop  Elements)
With a smooth edged brush and a contrasting RED as the foreground colour I zoomed in on the picture and started to draw around the edges of the horses.

Using red it is so much easier to see where I had been - I started out using black but soon gave up because the black was lost in the black areas of the shadows.
I use a graphic tablet so drawing around the horses was not as difficult as if I were using my track-ball mouse. I soon found that I could start the line exactly where I wanted it to start with no hovering about to see where the cursor was. The secret is to zoom in very close.
Once the outlines and harness details had been drawn I then clicked on the background and filled it with white. (Edit>Fill Layer>White )

I found that I had missed out the detail of the bit on the white horse so had to click "Undo" to remove the white and fix the problem. Once done I could fill the background with white once again.
Of course I did not want a red sketch, I wanted a black and right sketch.
I clicked on Layer 1 - the red sketch - and from the Menu bar clicked on Enhance>Convert to Black and White.

There are a few options to choose from - I found "Portrait" to give me the blackest lines.
The very last thing I did was again to go to the Menu Bar, click on Layers>Flatten image.
So now I feel I know how to create my sketches without the use of filters or special programs! DIY.
AJ

more colour changing

Continuing from my previous instructions on colouring a photo by creating a new layer for each different colour (and labelling each layer) I will show you how to change the colours even after you have moved on to a different layer.
I decided that I would see what different colours would look like on the baby dress.

In the layers palette I first clicked on the dress layer

Now click on Adjust>Adjust Color> Adjust Hue/Saturation.
When the Hue and Saturation box opens slide the HUE slider from side to side to see the different colours that are possible. When you find one you like, stop sliding and click "OK"

Have another try - go to Adjus>Adjust Color> Adjust Hue/Saturation. This time, slide the other sliders, the Saturation and the Lightness sliders to see what you can create.

Once you have completed your picture to your satisfaction, flatten the image - Go to the menu bar and click on Layers>Flatten Image (right at the bottom of the drop down box.
Save as a jpg image - if the picture is not flattened it can be saved with all its layers. It will be saved as a .psd image file.

Once it is flattened you will need to change the "Format" to "JPEG" or it will again be saved as a .psd image and email recipients will not be able to see it.
Have fun with your colour changing.
AJ

Bringing an old photo to life

Today I had a little time to play on my laptop. I have always been a Photoshop (CS) user but since so many people use Photoshop Elements these days I have been making myself work with this very handy photo editing program so that I can offer help to those that need it.
So finding a delightful photo taken in 1944 I decided to have a try at bringing it into the modern day - very few people could afford colour photography back then so black and grey it was! Once I started on the transformation I started to take snapshots of the different stages. This story would be far too long and very boring if I gave you each and every step that was taken so you will need to "read between the lines" occasionally. I don't think you will get lost.
The first thing that should be done is to remove bad spots and scratches. The magic healing brush does a great job of that - make the brush size  just a fraction larger than the black or white spot and simply "dab" it with the brush. Take care when dragging the brush along scratches, that sometimes makes a worse mess than is there to start with. Major scratches may need you to use the Clone/Stamp tool. I cheated . . . I only took away the spots on the skin and the little dress, I felt that the child was the important part of the picture and no one would notice what was in the background.
Here is the original photograph.

Now for the steps on how to add the colour.
To begin with you need to change the mode from greyscale to RGB.  Click on Image>Mode>RGB Color. If this is not done you will not be able to add any colours at all.
The colouring can be done in any order. for each new colour create a new blank layer and paint onto that. Never paint directly onto the photograph.
With this photograph I clicked first on the "Add new layer" button on the extreme left of the Layers Palette (In CS5 this button is on the extreme right)
The painting is done on the layer, not on the photo.Click on the foreground colour box (the top one of the two main colours at the bottom of the tool bar) and put these numbers in 
R . . . . 227    G . . . . 183  B . . . . 151 and click OK
You do not need to remember these numbers, I have given them to you as a quick start so that you know for the future where the colour is sampled for skin colour. At this stage it does not matter that the colour is too pink or too yellow, I will show you how to get it right.
Select a brush tool and select the brush shape that has a soft edge, not a smooth edge.
In the Layers palette change the blending mode from "Normal" to "Color".
Paint over the face, hands and legs - if there are more than one person in the picture, only do the skin of one person.
Zoom in very close and take your paint colour to the very edges, use the eraser to clean up any over spill.
The skin has been coloured but it may be an un-natural colour so we now fix it!
Click on Enhance>Adjust color>Adjust color for skin tone. In the pop up box that appears you can work real magic. Click the eye dropper on the skin - not the deep shadow or even the brightest part, there will be an automatic change to the colouring. You may wish to add a little more yellow or change the white balance - experiment with the sliders. You will only see a change when you release the mouse button so make only little changes.
Once you have the skin correct you can move to the next part to be coloured.
Add another layer by clicking on the Add new layer button and, once again, change the blending mode to "Color".
It is sensible to name each of the layers. Click twice on the writing and you will be able to type over the highlighted letter.
You will end up with lots and lots of layers.

With each of the layers renamed it is possible to go back and change things or paint in little bits that had been missed.
Here is the end result of my efforts with this photo.

Under all the layers is the black and white photograph, the colours are transparent and allow the shading and textures to show through. We have a wonderful program to work wonders on our old photographs!
AJ

Visit to the coast itself

Although my home is only a handful of kilometers from the sea I vary rarely go to see it. The proximity to the coast gives us a wonderful climate year round so I am fully aware of the sea - but I tend to look more at the country places, the mountains and the farming areas. But that changed yesterday, There was word of high winds and big seas on the way and my eldest son mentioned that he spotted whales breaching while he was driving home from work. So with a sunny afternoon and a couple of hours to spare I dragged my ever willing husband into the car along with my camera, tripod and two lenses and off we went to Tweed Heads.
From the headland we could see the splash as whales hit the surface of the sea - but they were so far away that we couldn't actually see the whales. Into the car we clambered and off we drove to Fingal Head. This is on the other side of the Tweed River from where we had been standing, and, since the opening of the wide and fast highway to Byron Bay, had managed to be "cut off" from too many travellers. The short drive out to Fingal Headland is past riverside homes that are prone to get their feet wet in times of exceptionally high tides and full river flow. It is a pleasant drive - and we seemed to be the only car on the road. As expected, when we arrived at the little carpark we discovered that we were not the only car on the road! Typical!
The walk through the coastal woodland over loose sand got our blood flowing faster and we emerged at the bright white painted lighthouse.

There were not too many people on the lawns after all, we could see a few family groups but they were scattered far and wide. Following the direction they were looking we too could see the activity way out on the Pacific Ocean. There must have been a group of three or four whales in one place and another pair in another. The sea was positively churning with their activity! Again, much too far away for either of my lenses but interesting enough for us to sit down on the lawn and watch them.
Spotting a sea eagle I changed lenses but that was the only sighting of it, I never did get a chance to take a photo! However with the 55-300mm lens I was ready when a pair of dolphin cruised by.

The sea was a most glorious aqua blue and the sky a rich cobalt. Such a perfect day to be out here. The sea was not rough and the threatened strong winds did not even rustle the leaves. It was calm! Since we needed to have an early evening meal we didn't stay too long so made our way back along the boardwalk to the sandy track that lead us back to the car.

In an area that is a mecca for tourists from all over the country and the world it is amazing that we can find places like this that are free of crowds and have so much to offer.
AJ

Does the camera lie?

Sometimes a shot requires a much better background for it to be a satisfying shot. Take this one for instance.

With a little work this same bird looks more at home here.

To make these changes required only a few easily learned processes

1. Selection
2. Clean up using a mask
3. Cloning
4. Selecting layers to be worked.

Selection can be done in so many ways - my preferred method is with the Lasso tool.
I made a rough selection of the bird and then pressed Ctrl+J which is the short-cut for "Copy and Paste".
To make the cleaning up of the selection really clear I then filled the background with a colour - If I had used either black or white I would have run into problems with finding the edges but with a colour I had no difficulties at all.
I then clicked on the bird layer and created a mask (small button on the Layers Palette) and with a soft edged brush and black as the foreground colour I painted away the wall and back of the chair that were still showing around the edges of the bird.
Then I created a background.
Here is the original shot I took for the background.

The stick looks good - but it is too high up in the picture. the left hand side of the picture is too bright and draws the eye over to see the fence and post in the background. Two things to fix up here. The stick first.

Just as with the bird I drew around the stick with the lasso tool and Ctrl+J to make a copy. In the Layers palette (shown on the right of this picture) you can see the stick as a layer - but looking at the picture you cannot see any difference at all.
With the move tool I dragged the stick closer to the bottom of the picture. Again a mask was created and the surrounds to the stick cleaned away. I did not want the original stick to be still in the picture so I then Clicked on the background and used the Stamp or Clone tool to sample in different places and replace the stick with leaves.

Another image was opened and part of that was selected to be used to fill the light area of background behind the stick.

To select this a rectangular selection tool was used and I clicked "Copy" (Ctrl+C)
I then opened the background picture I was working on, clicked on the background (in the Layers Palette) and clicked "Paste" (Ctrl+V)

The bird picture was opened again, the layer highlighted and selected (Ctrl+A). Double click on the background to open it again and Paste the bird and put him on the branch.
It all sounds mighty complicated but look at the list of processes that were used - only four!
So does the camera lie? Did I see a bird on the back of a chair on my veranda or did I see it in the garden?

AJ