Maria is in Norway

Maria is enjoying her chilly cruise across the North Sea and has visited a port in Norway, Here is an update of her story.

We arrived at Stavanger, Norway this morning and what an amazingly beautiful place it is. The industrial part of town looks like a National Park with everything in its place and spotlessly clean.  We saw only one bit of graffiti in the not so good part of town.  It is as cold as I thought it would be.  The Long Johns saved the day as the wind it bitterly cold. As soon as the sun is hidden behind a cloud - it's murder!

We did a trip to the Lysefjord (sounds like Lucyfjord) and the quirky attractions made my day.  The boat had the responsibility of delivering the newspapers, this was done by just tossing them overboard onto the jetty.  The next attraction was calling in on a huge colony of seals, three goats which were called Clinton, Gorbachev and Brezhnev, after that we parked right under a fabulous waterfall where one of the crew filled a spotlessly clean bucket of water and offered each of us a drink.  This water had to be the best I have ever tasted in my life.  No animals live on the island which meant the water was really, really clean.

For morning tea we had the local waffles with fresh cream and home made jam.  Once again, I have never tasted such delicious jam and cream.  The other thing John and I noticed was the clarity of the air as it is incredibly clear making it a photographer's dream.
Maria

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Maria has limited internet connection (which costs an arm and a leg) and will be unable to send updates daily as a result. However I shall add more of her story as I receive them. Today there were no pictures to show the places that were visited so I have used a couple of pictures that are not mine - the first one I have been able to give credit to the photographer but the second came from a travel site with no reference to the photographer. I have changed the sky in the photo (the one of Lysefjord) but I would have liked to have known the name of the person who took it in the first place to give him or her, credit for it. AJ
AJ

Having another go with Photoscape

I have spoken to a few people who have downloaded Photoscape and are having a play with it and they are quite excited about what can be done. None of these people are clever "photoshop" users, they find the layers and masks and processes all very confusing and yet they are having a great time with this program and are getting very good results. It is good that a program such as this is not only easy to use but effective at all kinds of tasks too.
One of the people I have chatted to is scanning old slides and the results of the Photoscape manipulation I have been shown are excellent.

This photograph is a comparison shot. The photo on the left is how the original scan looks (I worked on this photo - it is of me a VERY long time ago!) The program allowed brightness and contrast correction, colour removal and cloning. The cloning tool is faultless! I was totally amazed at how easy and how invisibly the repairs were made. When scanning old photos there are always little black and sometimes, white, dots that mar the picture. I was able to zoom right in and use the clone brush to remove those blemishes.
If I wanted to give the corrected photo a sepia wash so that it looks as dated as the original a quick click on the appropriate filter will do that. But since the photo was a black and white originally and only time and poor developing has changed it to dull brown I will keep it the way I have now made it!
AJ