All the time the thistle feeders were packed away at least one Goldfinch would visit each day to check things out and it didn't take long for a few to arrive once there was free food back at the Birdy Bistro.
Also starting to return is the occasional Rook. So far they have just visited the fat ball container near the bottom of the garden which is not removable even by the craftiest corvid - famous last words?? They are as shy as ever so only a silhouette as one beat a hasty retreat.
The collage at the top was made using a program called Comic Life which I found out about from Roy of The Fenland Walker, Birding and Countryside Blog when I asked how he had made a particular collage. At first I though it was a program only for the Mac but there is a Windozy version. The large 'collage' choice makes a change from the few in Picasa and it is so easy to drag and resize pictures. The only problem I found was it is painfully slow at scanning folders of photos. As my main folder has over 7000 files it was taking minutes to reach the end. Pity, as otherwise I would have upgraded my 30 day free trial.
They are all slow at uploading John. They upload quick enough it's generating thumbnails that seem to take the time. try allocating more RAM to the job and shut down everything else you can. Glad your problem is over, let's hope it remains so.
ReplyDeleteJohn, words and music here http://adriansimages.blogspot.com/2009/05/two-water-troughs-photoshop-improving.html
ReplyDeleteSee if it helps, cheers.
As you say Adrian, it is the thumbnail building which is dreadfully slow. Plenty of free memory as there is 1GB free when the program is running. Also I think it has a limit on the number of thumbnails it can handle as it never reaches the end of the large folder but keeps going back to the beginning. Shame, as otherwise Comic Life looks a good piece of cheap shareware.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link. I tried a few things but they made no difference.
Aha! A quick test and it is possible to drag and drop from a folder to the program which is fast.
Good to see the visitors back John.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't take long for the word to get around. :)
John, I'm an idiot when it comes to computers, but being from Yorkshire originally don't spend if it can be avoided. Cos it doesn't load thumbnails is because it uses scratch memory. A problem unique to PCs. I have partioned a disc on this lap top and it does make things faster 5GB seems to work.
ReplyDeletePlease someone out there help us!!John use Elements (Photoshop) Hard to learn but magic and cheap version six on is good.
That gold colour on their wings is quite amazing! really vivid yellow! BTW I'm driving up to your neck of the woods tomorrow to visit the seals at Donna Nook!
ReplyDeleteLove the top picture; looks like you have ComicLife software too.
ReplyDeleteYou are right there Keith. There is always a look out in a tree top somewhere watching what is going on.
ReplyDeleteHi again Adrian. When I was considering upgrading my photo processing software I decided on Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 in the end as I have used various versions of PSP for years and didn't fancy learning a new one. I just wanted a dedicated program for the odd fancy layout and now I have overcome the problem with Comic Life I will stick with it as it is so easy to use.
ReplyDeleteI hope your day is as sunny as it is here, even if it is only 7C at the moment.
Thank you Emma. Yes I decided on Comic Life in the end now I have found a way round the only problem I was having with it. It is nice to get away from the few alternatives in Picasa for picture collage arrangements.
ReplyDeleteYes Matron, the goldy yellow is very bright and looks even better when the wings are open.
ReplyDeleteI hope you manage to get to see some seals and that there is no bombing practice going on. Surprisingly I have never been there at this time of year.
Hi Midmarsh John, I use comic life a lot - I put a copy of the images I want to use in a folder on the desktop and then it seems very quick as it is only searching one folder - then I delete that desktop folder when the comic is made.
ReplyDeleteK
Hello Karen. Thank you for the tip. That sounds a good way round the problem. The problem seem to be mainly with very large quantities of photographs, probably the size of the photographs doesn't help as they average 8MB and there are over 10,000 in my main folder so that is a lot of processing.
ReplyDelete