Château de Chambord

An interesting technique with landscapes and cityscapes is the use of a texture over your chosen image. It often gives the image a weathered look.

The process is a simple one. Paste a texture over your chosen image and change the blending mode to something suitable. Overlay is a good choice but try some others as well. You can lower the opacity to suit.

You can save this file in a tiff or psd format, to save your layers in case you wish to make future changes.

Texture files to use for your overlays are easy to make or obtain. Google “free textures” or try taking some images on your own. Good subjects are old walls or out of focus shots.

Index to Photoshop Tutorials.

This tutorial is a part of the Photoshop Workflow Series

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Sur le pont d'Avignon

Sur le pont d’Avignon is a popular French song about this bridge in Avignon, dating from the 15th century, complete with legend of the builder’s lost love

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Outside the D'Orsay

The entrance to the D’orsay museum in Paris is a wonderful design.

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French Countryside

This is a scene of Angle sur l’Angle in the late spring and the morning

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The Courtyard

While walking down the back streets of the town of Argenton in France, I came across this small courtyard which seemed to possess great character as well as history.

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After the flood

It had rained for a few days before the town of Argenton-sur-Creuse flooded. This is the day after and the skies are finally beginning to clear.

Argenton-sur-Creuse is a beautiful town in the Loire valley region of France.

I processed this in what I thought of as a painterly style. A bit of HDR to bring out shadow detail, especially of the trees, and a find edges filter to provide lots of contrast.

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This video was taken at La Camargue, France. This tree had a few other species nesting in it, Great Egret as well as Cattle Egret.

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Description:

The male has a distinct rounded orange head, a red bill, black breast and white flanks. The female is brown with a lighter face.

Range:

It breeds in southern Europe and Asia. Some birds move south into Northern Africa in winter.

Status:

Birdlife International rates it as Least Concern

Red-crested Pochard male	Red-crested Pochard female
Red-crested Pochard female	Red-crested Pochard male

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My first bird video is above. I got a Canon HV20 for a family wedding, and of course I had to video some birds with it. I suspect Spielberg doesn’t feel threatened.

The delta of the Rhone River in southern France is known as La Camargue, bounded by the city of Arles in the North and the Mediterranean Sea in the south. See a map.  It is one of the top birding areas in Europe. It is made up of lakes, marsh lands and brine lagoons, and is a haven for a wide variety of birds, resident or migratory.

One of the best spots is the Pont de Gau Ornithological Park situated a few km. before the town of Stes Maries de la Mer. It has several kilometers of trails and boardwalks and a number if hides. In the lagoons, you will have close views of Greater Flamingo, Gray Heron, Little Egret, Cattle Egret, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Yellow-legged, Black-headed and Mediterranean Gull, Common Pochard, Common Shelduck, Red-crested Pochard and Marbled Teal. Most of these species breed here, and we saw chicks of Black-winged Stilt and Pied Avocet. A nice surprise was a bird I had not seen before, the Eurasian Spoonbill. The introduced Sacred Ibis, as well as White Storks flew about.

Throughout the whole of La Camargue you may find interesting species like Yellowhammer, Eurasian Reed-Warbler, Blackcap, Sardinian Warbler, Hoopoe and Black Kite.

While we visited in June, I’m sure any time of year would offer some excellent birding.

The Parc naturel régional de la Brenne is a large area in central France which includes some important wetlands, woodlands and grasslands, as well as many small villages and agricultural areas.

Driving the tree shaded back roads, you will encounter Common Wood-Pigeon, Eurasian Turtle-Dove, the strange and wonderful Hoopoe, Yellowhammer and Eurasian Jay, and common birds like the Chaffinch, Eurasian Blackbird and European Goldfinch.

More open fields host Red-legged Partridge, Red-backed Shrike, Black Kite and Eurasian Buzzard.

There is a visiter center near Saint-Michel-en-Brenne which has a boardwalk over the marsh as well as a number of hides in the area. You may see Black-headed Gull, Great-crested, Eared and Little Grebes, Eurasian Coot, Eurasian Reed-Warbler, Long-tailed Tit, Gray Heron and Purple Heron,  and Little Egret.

I would recommend it as a fine way to spend a day.