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A buzzard and a crow over City of Hamburg / Eppendorf Canon EOS 80D Sigma EF 150-600 at 600 1/1600s Handheld Sky smoothed with denoise and bilateral blur Birds treated with mild tone map (20% / 20%) and clarity

— part one may be seen here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/29419-ap-•-early-morning-birds-at-the-marsh/ • Having a boring corporative Christmas event to shoot that day at 10:30, and since I was up and ready quite early, I went to the close by marsh to see the sunrise. I had a good (but too short) time with the light and the birds though most foliage is down. Cold, crisp, clean air granted me some cool light conditions. As always, 600mm ƒ4 @ ƒ8 on D810 combo. Have a look, have a good time! C&C welcomed… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 I was very moved by this scene of the little boy sharing for a moment his grandpa's passion for wildlife 10 This will need some words. That little fellow (swift like nothing else) was hunting at +/- 290m from my position. So this image is no more than 6% of the original frame… but I could'n resist!!!

• — following and completing this thread: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/27639-no-ap-•-first-snow-—picture-heavy/ … ​ Very heavy clouds and fog were not helping me in this but the equation remains and should be completed: I got the gear + here is the challenge = I'm gonna do what? By law (physics laws that is!), birds will fly at the same speed (flight is flight!) in good or bad lighting conditions. I should try to get good results and the solution resides in tweaking the shooting settings accordingly, accepting to compromise here and/or there: higher ISO, same ƒ stop, and, when possible, slower SS. Every time it is different and, today, some Great Egrets really outperformed all the others birds show wise. The light was alien somehow but that did not bother the birds. Have a look, have a good time… C&C welcomed! 1 2 3 4 5 It was also breakfast time for what we call a "Blue Heron"! 6 7 8 This Great Egret is getting dangerously close to the Heron which is a much stronger bird. 9 This hybrid Goose (Greylag + ???) brought a rather modest contribution to the show! 10 "Clear the runway, here I come"!

8I just wrote a story today, about how Crystal Frost learned to fly. and i just finished her illustration with the baby bird... hope you like the image and enjoy the read.. some day i hope to be a professional artist and a story teller... o doodle on I pad using sketch club, when it comes to the rest all done on Affinity Design I learned a lot on cool new ways experiment... so easy and my work flow sonic speed.. Crystals dragon Father refuses to teach his daughter to fly, he needs her to stay out of sight to be safe. Not teaching her to fly keeps her grounded and gives him less to worry about... While her fathers is away catching their dinner Crystal wanders off into the woods. The warmth of the sun shining bright, the beautiful new smell of the clean forest, after a lovely small light shower, Crystal walks into the thick forest,, she hears chirping sound coming from a very tall tree, Curious on what it is, she tries to climb the tree, after many falls and a few bruises, being stubborn refusing to give up. She finally reaches the branch. The chirping sound chattery grew loud, coming from a nest. On a think branch on the tree Baby birds. Five baby birds. Overjoyed and happy to see the creatures. She lays down on the branch to watch the baby birds, being very still and quite hoping not to scare them off.. Flap flap flap, the baby birds in excitement quickly flocked to the bigger bird, the bird open its beak to feed her baby birds, crystals expression quickly changed from a happy smile, to a gross look. Yuck... How can they eat that stuff... However the baby birds seem to like it.. She was relieved she was not a baby bird... The big bird flies off, while the baby birds continue to chatter and chirp.. Worried that the baby birds might fall and get hurt, she stays behind to keep an eye on the baby birds.. Growl, feeling hungry, she looks around for some food. up above her head she sees a big shiny red apple. She slowly and quietly stand up on her hine hoofs trying not to make a sound, grabs at the apple with her mouth, quickly yet quietly goes back to laying down on the branch.. .Munch, munch munch, crunch, eating her snack. she looks back at the nest, one two three four...! Where is the fifth baby bird, looking quickly past the nest she finds the missing baby bird on the edge of the branch, tiny wings spread out, chipping happily, bobbing up and down, Freaking out and not thinking she quickly spings into action to catch the baby bird, only to find herself falling from the tree, afraid she closes her eyes, however suddenly her wings spread open and she find her self flying in the breeze, and coming to a Crash landing in a blueberry bush. Covered in small leaves, broken bush branches, and squished blueberries. She quickly scrambles up, looks in the sky for the baby bird. Tweet Tweet Tweet that sound familiar.. She quickly turns to see the baby bird perched on the broken bush, eating blue berries with her beak.. still hungry, She joins in eating the blueberries... Muzzle covered in blue, full and content, she watches the baby bird, The baby bird lifts his little wings flaps and flies.. Crystal realizing her wings can do the same thing, desides to spend the rest of the day following the baby bird, imitating the birds wing movements , and in the ends learns to fly Excited about what she just learned, she quickly rushes home. the bird perched on a branch watches as she fades off into the deep forest. just getting back , with his catch in a old cloth, crystal cries look what i can do.. she spreads out her wings, flaps them and takes to the sky, does a loop, glides, and lands on her rock.. feeling happy and proud at what she achieved. Seeing his daughter fly for the first time, he frowns, fearful and angary, he lashed out in anger, scolds her for wandering off and tells his Daughter never EVER to fly ever again.. tearful feeling she did something very wrong she promises never to fly again.

• Having a boring corporative Christmas event to shoot that day at 10:30, and since I was up and ready quite early, I went to the close by marsh to see the sunrise. I had a good (but too short) time with the light and the birds though most foliage is down. Cold, crisp, clean air granted me some cool light conditions. As always, 600mm ƒ4 @ ƒ8 on D810 combo. Have a look, have a good time! C&C welcomed… Part 2 is here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/29470-ap-•-early-morning-birds-at-the-marsh-•-part-2/ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 AP was used to clean up debris from the water surface!

@DelNI would love to have your instructions and also the Nature brushes you are willing to share. I am trying to draw terrariums and similar setups. Nature brushes would be great thanks

Hello all. This is a mockup for a YouTube channel I am working on every so often. Green is representative of nature along with some other things which is the reason for the color. If you would like to see more logos and branding I have done, they can be seen here https://www.behance.net/Statement-Design

Recent edit .. The Zwin Nature Reserve

Illustrated maps for village promotion and tourist places. Created in Affinity Designer using vector technique combined with bitmap using Concept Master Vol.1: Nature Brush Pack brushes and those created by myself. So far, for several maps, I have drawn about 200 objects with varying degrees of accuracy.

The problem with logos that target a specific subject, that is diverse in nature, it is difficult to select one that is covers them all. There are all sorts of angles from which peers imagine it and review it. The same goes for visitors on which the logo is used. Simple assignments can appear to be more difficult to draw than things may seem at first glance.

That's why photography is such a inspiring Hobby. Also on Google+ : See the link below

I have just finished 'Mountains in the Mist', which I did in Affinity Photo using the free 'Nature' and 'Atmosphere' brushes (plus a few images and other brushes). I have uploaded too a numbered set of JPG images from the first background sky layer 01_ to the last _FINAL so (if anyone is interested 😄) you can see how I created it.

Hi Glennsart, Glad I could help. I found that particular tutorial really helpful too. I've watched it several times. Is there somewhere on the forum that I can check out your artwork? I'd love to see it. Also, I don't know if you are aware, but I uploaded a load of free 'Nature' and 'Atmosphere' brushes for Affinity Photo. The brushes are right at the bottom of the link below. There's also a Word file step-by-step instruction on how to create image brushes, which I put together for Affinity Photo users. The link is: Other really interesting tutorials I have found are: The Colour Replacement Brush How to create a Gold or Chrome Effect - Affinity Photo Tutorial Also, have you checked out AÍ-generated Art yet? He-he! I think you're gonna like this... 😄 Dall-E 2 and MidJourney are probably my favourites, but there are several more AI art generators. The beauty of the art is astonishing. The darkness, the creativity. Its all very nightmarish, but wonderful... Check out these links on Pinterest to see what people are creating with them. If you've not heard of them, I think the artwork will amaze you (it certainly blew me away): https://www.pinterest.co.uk/search/pins/?q=midjourney generated art&rs=typed https://www.pinterest.co.uk/search/pins/?rs=ac&len=2&q=dall e 2 art&eq=dall-E 2&etslf=4484 Have fun! DelN

• Introduction. Since some 10 days, I'm going around (not fast nor far!) with a set of crutches after a severe fall in an icy outdoor stairway that twisted my left ankle. —"That 's a good one"… said the surgeon, "No need to operate though that will nail or slow you down for some time, I'm afraid!" Yesterday, I couldn't stand it anymore. I asked a friend to help me put the wildlife gear in the car and drive me to the marsh for a couple of hours. Do you remember this girl (young female Mandarin duck) who grabbed my heart in the middle of December? Though I was hooked in a rather platonic affair, she broke my heart… but I'm happy for her… I had the feeling that this romance had no future. Followed in the next post…

A tangle of pipes, steel girders and ladders around the decommissioned blast furnaces, with nature resurgent in between. Duisburg Landscape Park around a disused ironworks in Duisburg-Meiderich, popularly known as LaPaDu. Developed from Raw with DxO Photolab and Postprocessing done with Affinity Photo 1.10.5 PS: On Monday morning, filming of the Hollywood production "The Tributes of Panem - The Song of the Bird and the Serpent" started in Duisburg's Landschaftspark.

The most memorable thing when I traveled to Australia is the moment I met the sleepyhead Koala. The Koala was sleeping in a very cute pose stuck in a branch, and it was loved by many visitors. I really wanted to bring the Koala to Korea where I live. So with good memory about Koala, I started working on this photo manipulation with affinity photo. When we meet Koalas in nature, I don't think they are threatening at all. Even if it is very huge size, I think we will be able to watch it comfortably because it sleeps all day. I have that kind of good feeling about Koalas and I want to share this feeling from my photo manipulation artwork. "Meet The Giant Sleepyhead" speed art : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85SS1gE_DR0

The linked page includes the following. > ---- The Alphabet Synthesis Machine is an interactive art work at http://alphabet.tmema.org on the web, created for Art21 and PBS by Golan Levin with Jonathan Feinberg and Cassidy Curtis. There are available for free download from this present webspace a number of fonts. These fonts, produced by William Overington using the Alphabet Synthesis Machine, are available for free download from this webspace by kind permission of Mr Golan Levin. All of these fonts contain abstract characters which can be accessed using the letters A to Z and a to z. Each font also contains digits and punctuation, which are the same for every font produced using The Alphabet Synthesis Machine. ---- Later on the same page is the following. > LADY_M_G.TTF, Lady_M_greets_the_horse_L If one tries these in WordPad in blue at a 300 point size, the sequence ML produces the painting "Lady M greets the horse L" and the sequence WZ produces the painting "Lady reading haiku to an elephant" on the screen. ---- There are various items about the Alphabet Synthesis Machine on the web. http://www.flong.com/archive/projects/alphabet/index.html I learned of the Alphabet Synthesis Machine from the following mailing list post https://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2002-m02/0541.html I posted in the thread. https://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2002-m03/0128.html The link in that post no longer exists, yet the Pools of glass in ceramic font is available from the following web page. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/font0100.htm (By the way, please do not use the email address from which I wrote that post. It still exists but is typically full of spam so a message would be very unlikely to get through.) To use the Alphabet Synthesis Machine an end user would first draw on screen a shape. So it could be a circle, or a square and so on, and then the machine could be run and it iterated 52 glyphs influenced by that glyph and some user set controls if I remember correctly. The end user can stop the machine whenever and inspect the glyphs. The end user can then save the font, giving it a name. So i used to look at the glyphs and decide upon a name for the font. Sometimes the glyphs produced just looked like abstract designs, yet sometimes the image seemed to have the look of something. Such as the lady, as if reading a book. But what was in the book? Maybe haiku. Another glyph had a part that reminded me of the trunk of an elephant. Then a lady as if extending her hand for it to be kissed in a greeting. Then that glyph reminded me of a horse. In one font, the look of the glyph encoded as a letter G looked to me like two cranes, as in cranes that are birds. But what else? The part at the left reminded me of a decorative arch in a Japanese garden. And behind the cranes, a roundish shape. Maybe the moon. Yet not circular, so maybe a gibbous moon. Cranes before a gibbous moon That is an image that I produced in 2021. I got it printed as a 7 inch by 5 inch portrait format greetings card using the Papier online facility and after I received it I framed it in a large oak effect frame, sold as for a 10 inch by 8 inch photograph, that I had gotten delivered by Tesco with my grocery. I was looking at the web yesterday evening and apparently there is a name for the general phenomenon of imagining patterns in random data, and another name as a subset where the data is an image. William

Hey, John, you are absolutely correct. Both images were taken within milliseconds of each other and the ghost image was the first frame cut to 35% of it's full resolution, then focus merge was used to create this effect without having a ghost on the hummingbird feeder itself. Experimenting with the focus merge capability in AP has brought about some very interesting and delightful results. Unfortunately, being that I'm retired and have too much time on my hands my friends will be getting too many of my results. I am glad you liked the result and hopefully it made your day a little brighter to see this little wonder of nature. Mortimer aka Richard

I watched on the news that a huge whale leisurely passed down when a man was canoeing alone in the sea. The man looked very scared, but fortunately, the whale passed by without any accident. In fact, I think that meeting wild animals in nature can be quite dangerous. Some people rush away when they meet even a small cat on the street. So what if a whale that's several meters long passed right underneath? But on the other hand, sometimes I want to feel the thrill of this unexpected meeting. I think that's why people travel to safari in Africa or explore the Amazon jungle. "Fishing with Whales" is a photo manipulation with affinity photo that expresses the thrill of such an unexpected meeting in connection with fishing that I like. "Fishing with Whales" speed art : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQVI0-JKLzU

In anticipation of a rather rare wintry day here in the "Sunny South" I created the sorrowful scene below from an image that (I must confess) I found somewhere two or three years ago. Unfortunately I cannot provide appropriate attribution to the original image, which I think came from Unsplash. A little selecting, a little Quick Masking, some Refining Selection, some cutting and pasting, some brushed birds, and some Snow Overlays by Paper Farms (assets) and behold! A truly dreary aspect.🥶😀

A little test based on an illustration from a cereal box. Playing around and getting use to the pen tool and shapes...

I'm still not sure about this one. The original photo (as posted above) is really, really flat and definitely needs some extra brightness, color, and contrast. But it was so very easy to go overboard without doing very much at all. I even tried Black and White, which could work, but you wanted realistic, so.... I did a sky replacement, and lowered the saturation of the blues to match the cold, blustery weather that seems to be the case. (At least, that's how I remember New England, from many years ago.) On the non-sky elements, I applied Curves and Brightness/Contrast to give the photo better tonality. I added a bunch of Recolor adjustments to the water, grass, and background trees and lowered their opacity quite a bit (to keep them out of the crazy zone). I didn't add any birds, though! See what you think.

So tonights late night doodle is dedicated to the special lady in my life... Ok maybe this was an excuse to play with creating my own custom brushes. I am building a nice little collection of brushes. So tonight was about brushes and mixing up some vectors with some pixels all in one image. You work in this application long enough you start jumping between the pixel and Draw Persona and you dont even think twice. I love to know what everyone interpretation of the story is in this image. (Squirrel) ohh did I mention I say Big Hero 6 the movie today? Go see it !!! It is worth every bit of the coin. Anyway enjoy.

Okay, one more OT item on Cormorants; just came across this while reading (yeah, a real book, for cryin' out loud)... From The Wonder of Birds by Jim Robbins. 'Some birds can count. ... In the 1970s, biologist Pamela Egremont watched as Chinese fishermen on the Li River used cormorants to catch fish. The fishermen place a neck ring on the birds, which cinches their throats tightly so they can't swallow, and they are then trained to return with a fish in their mouth. The birds are allowed, however, to eat every eighth fish. When they return to the fishermen after the seventh fish, Egremont wrote in a journal article, they "stubbornly refuse to move again until their neck ring is loosened" so they can eat the eighth fish as usual. "They ignore an order to dive and even resist a rough push or a knock, sitting glum or motionless on their perches. One is forced to conclude that these highly intelligent birds can count up to seven."' This is in the 10th chapter, Bird Brain - Human Brain, where it explains that in the last 10 years scientists have re-evaluated brains in birds and now conclude they are much smarter than previously thought. The old description bird-brain no longer applies.

I thought people would comment on the artwork of the project and maybe the simplistic nature of the characters. I did not expect comments on the practice of using and standing near the work badge scanner.