Cutting out a Rose

This rose bloom looked beautiful but it needed the clutter removing to show it at its best:



Load in Photo Scissors on the Mac. Mark in green the part wanted. Mark in red what has to be removed. Check and make any adjustments where the program makes a mistake. Crop and save the rose as a PNG with a transparent background:



Pop that in Serif Affinity Designer. Flood fill the background with a dark colour. Tidy up any remaining small errors around the edges of the rose. Save the end result:



Total time taken about fifteen minutes.

The new title piccy was produced in Serif Affinity Designer while I was learning how to use layers and how to cut bits from photos and paste them in a new picture.

Blooming Snow

For me one of the strangest sights in my back garden this week has been the dwarf standard rose in full bloom covered with a layer of snow. I don't remember it ever blooming this late in the year in the past.



Fortunately, so far, we haven't had a lot of snow but I have no doubt there will be more on the way over the next week.

It would appear many of the visiting Starlings have now arrived to join the residents. Certainly the numbers visiting my feeders has suddenly increased. As always they spend more time squabbling than they do eating and the smaller birds have to find a gap when it is safe to fly in for a quick bite to eat.







 There are three male Chaffinches which usually visit at the same time. It is fascinating watching their antics as they try not to invade each others space. Occasionally there will be a short chase but most of the time they manage to avoid contact with each other.