From Cloudy To Bright

I've made my most dramatic photo edit so far with the pictures you see here today. You can see the original at the bottom of the post. The most obvious change is that I replaced the sky. It was a a dark and rainy day when I took the original picture, so I thought a change would be fun.

I also had to brighten up the photo just a bit. That was my subtle change in the picture. You may not even be able to notice that part. the horse has a little bit more definition to it now. I think the biggest thing I did though was to straighten out the grass just a bit.

Straightening the grass and the ground wasn't easy. there may be a better way than I used, but it's the first time I tried something like this. I think I did okay with it. Overall, the pictures I made aren't super realistic, but I like what I was able to do. They show the kinds of things that can be done with a free photo editor, such as Gimp.

Another thing I've been up to is having to deal with my crashing computer again. I've known the problem for awhile, a bad solid state hard drive, but I've been waiting to fix it until the next version of Windows comes out. Well, I couldn't wait any longer. My computer once again crashed so badly that I had to reinstall the whole operating system. I've had to do that several times in the past six months.

I finally switched to another hard drive to end my problems. But after all of my problems I decided to have a little fun. Instead of installing Windows 7 once again, I decided to install the release preview of the brand new Windows 8.

Some people will tell you that Windows 8 is too different from previous versions of Windows. It's true that it is a drastic change from older versions. They'll also tell you that Microsoft removed the start button. That's not true. the start button is still there in Windows 8, but they moved it to something called the charms bar.

For those of you who think all this computer talk is mostly gibberish, you're going to love this new, easier version of Windows when it comes out in October. It's easier to use than anything else you might have ever tried before. And Microsoft is offering very cheap upgrades to it for everyone who has a previous version of Windows installed already.

That was a long bit of nonsense for you to read, but I really do love talking computers. I'd start another blog about just that, but I already have my hands full with the blogs already have. Oh! You may recognize the picture above from one of my past posts. I like this picture of the horse, but it was fun messing around and changing it too.

And good news! I was able to get out a bit and get some decent nature pictures for my next few posts. My truck wasn't running well before, but the trusty garage down the road seems to have gotten it fixed pretty well this time. Maybe that will mean a return to more posts from me now. I can hope. Things are really looking brighter.