Judy, thank you for you kind comments! I've never been on a cruise either...just shot this as a 'drive by'.

Rusty, thank you...I really got lucky with this BIF, but you should see the many that just didn't cut it!

PS. No beer doughnuts for me either...seems that 'fair' food keeps getting weirder!

Betty, your donkey looks like a lovely painting for sure.

Rusty, That's a beautiful, glitzy tiara Miss Wisconsin (?) is wearing.

Tennie, I agree with Rusty - don't see how the bird could be any better - very nice!

Mary

Thanks, Mary. (There was some touching up on it.)

I'm trying to get all the photos for the month...didn't quite make it last month. So this is one from a previous list (July).

Gross

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Tennie yuk you got that catagory right!

a glitch created this reply & some other problems. The usual delete option isn't available, so I can't remove it ---

this is the message I received
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Please notify the board administrator or webmaster: support@prestophoto.com

Thanks for the comment Judy, Courtney & Mary

Wonderful photos, Tennie & Rusty.

Tennie, the bird is perfect. I wish I could get a wonderful capture like that.

Rusty, hope you eventually taste a beer donut & let the rest of us know what you think.
Nice page of ' U's.


OK, it takes a lot of courage to post something like this after Tennie's fantastic shot.
Choice:

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I'm checking out a trial version of Topaz restyle, which is a lot of fun. It's reminds me of Virtual Photographer on steroids. A combo of restyle & buz sim were used, therefore, the bird's colors are far from true.

BJ, thanks for the nice comment. I'm likely more critical of myself...
Your bird turned out well.

I do like Restyle also...it has so many controls with the blending options, opacity, and the ability to adjust the hue, saturation, texture, sharpness and more. Can also be used for some wild looks, but I've just been saving some photos with it. (The cruise ship was done in Restyle.)

BJ i love your bird shot. My efforts with birds have just been blobs.

Thanks Judy & Tennie.
Tennie, I was wondering if your latest spider photo also has restyle. I looks great!

After Judy's help with IDing the bird as a Western Kingbird , I decided to try another approach with the help of restyle cotton cloud @ 50% in screen mode. Then in PS, a black point was establised & the highlights increased.

As Tennie says, a lot of wild effects can be created with restyle, (as shown with the bird above)

btw - I like this more natural version better.

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just in case anyone has missed the announcement:http://www.topazlabs.com/restyle/
http://www.youtube.com/user/topazlabs/videos
http://www.topazlabs.com/webinars/

I like both the wild and more natural looks. Makes life interesting.

BJ, except for the 'gross' pic I used restyle on all photos in this thread. I was beta testing and trying to see what could be done...I do have a few 'wild' results also, but preferred to keep it more natural here.