I asked Twitter on Monday,

“If you could have a (tame) dinosaur as your mount in a barren, post-apocalyptic wasteland, which would it be?”

Read some of the responses after the break.

But first, the Parasaurolophus in the photo was purchased at Impression 5 Science Center in downtown Lansing.

Here are a few responses:

“A giant velocaraptor: it hunts, it’s fast, and when I’m lazy, it can open doors for me.” – @ashetler

“TRex. Benefits: Folks know you’re coming, they have that cool whippy tail, you *are* the fast lane.” – @AmberMShinn

“T-rex, for sure.” – @joshhovey

“Pterodactyl. I prefer to rain havoc from above.” – @ryanknott

“Triceratops, but only if it shoots potatoes like that thing in the Mighty Herculoids.” – @MichiganJake

“Allosaurus, fo sho. +5 agility, +2 finger capacity vs. TRex. -2 head size, -3 movie appearances though.” – @nbarnes20

“I would choose a Trike, duh.” – @julieburtch

And from the Facebook gang:

“Best question ever. Brontasaurus. Hands down.” – Veronica

“Stegosaurus.” – Natalie

“Call me unoriginal, but a T-Rex. I’d ride on his huge head.” – Amanda

“Really, I’d have to go with my fave, the parasauralophus. I think with the appropriate saddle they could be fun to ride.” – Stephanie

And no post about dinosaurs would be complete without this, the intro to the Dinosaucers cartoon.

Best cartoon intro ever? Yes.

NOTE: Sorry about the “Test” post that made its way into my RSS feed yesterday.

It happens to all of us. Or maybe just me. Er, anyway–We take a neat photo, and when we get around to editing the sucker, the colors are kind of…”blah.” Boring. Flat. Whatever. You can fix this in post by shooting in RAW, which I plan on doing now that I have a new external hard drive and lots of space.

But, if shot in JPEG, like I did for the above photo, the colors in the photo are set. What can you do?

Fix your photo’s colors in Photoshop. See what I did after the break.

Here is the full original. Pretty boring color, and yeah, the composition ain’t the best either. But, I liked the sign. This will be featured in an upcoming installment of my Attraction Lost series (photos from abandoned tourist attractions). I wanted to brighten the image and bring out this mute colors a bit more.

First, I created a Levels adjustment layer. That let me tweak the color level without damaging the original image (you can always hide, tweak, or delete an adjustment layer).

Here we have the original color level settings.

And here is what I changed them to. I didn’t have a set idea as to what I wanted the levels to be, I just kept tweaking until I liked the final look (which is how I do pretty much everything in Photoshop). After I set the Levels, I messed around with the Layer Blending mode until I found something I liked. I decided on Pin Light.

Better. Nothing amazing, but better. I wasn’t quite happy with this look (too “cool”), so I threw on a Curves adjustment layer (above the Levels layer).

I didn’t tweak the overall RGB channel too much, just until I got a look I liked.

My biggest adjustment came on the Red color channel. I wanted to boost the reds in the image and make it look “warmer.” After getting the look I wanted, I again messed around with the layer blending options. I eventually decided on Color.

And bingo! Here’s my final image.  I’m much happier with how this looks. The tones are warmer and I brought out a lot more detail in “Ruby’s” face. It still isn’t the most awesome photo in the world, but it’ll do, and this was a great Photoshop exercise.

Tomorrow: A dino photo!

While I was camping in Caseville last month, I decided to take a stab at snapping photos of the sunset. I know the world ain’t hurting for more photos of sunsets on the Great Lakes, but it was something I had to try at least once.

The beach at Sleeper State Park in Caseville is very lovely, and is a great spot for photos. Sadly, I didn’t have totally clear nights every time I shot, but I made due. I had never shot photos of a sunset before, so I had to learn as I went–and fast.

More photos after the break.

I cropped this one considerably. Now I’m thinking I should have cropped the left side even closer to the couple, but I like them being off center. I like the glow on the clouds.

I wasn’t too happy with the focus here, so I decided to play with this image in Photoshop. I used the Curves tool and set the layer’s blend mode to Hard Light.

Same as above, just switched to black and white. Like I said, this photo is kinda “meh,” so I decided to have some fun.

Tweaked the colors a touch in Photoshop–I wanted to boost those blues and reds. This might be my favorite of the bunch.

Tomorrow: fixing a photo’s flat color in Photoshop

That is all!

I was at Potter Park Zoo a few weekends ago for my girlfriend’s nephew’s birthday party–say that five times fast–it was same day I shot my Thirsty Bald Eagle photos.

To help celebrate the boy’s second birthday, some of his cousins and friends were along for the fun (I only took photos of kids in our group, not strangers). I decided to try and snap a few candid shots of the kids enjoying the Zoo.

I’m trying to take more photos of people, as I need the practice.

The birthday boy pulling his cousin in a wagon. Cute. More after the break.

The birthday boy looking a bit tired–and covered with ice cream.  I love his expression. I tweaked the colors to make the shadow of his hat stick out a bit more, I liked how it covered part of his face and added to his expression.

The birthday boy’s BFF. This was one of my favorite shots, but after reviewing it, I realized it was sorta out of focus. Dangit. I switched it to black and white and then used the Film Grain filter in Photoshop. I like the look of this.

Loved this shot. Same girl as above. She was in the petting zoo and turned around to see a goat right behind her, and got spooked.  I wish her mom’s legs weren’t in the background, but it still a cute photo.

Another pal of the birthday boy.  Love the sunglasses.

Liked this shot a bunch too, but like the black and white shot above, my focus wasn’t great. I cross-processed the colors in Photoshop to help hide the lame focus a bit.

Tomorrow: Taking photos of Michigan sunsets

A night shot taken in Lansing’s Old Town. See the toad in the lower left? Wasn’t intended. I messed with the contrast and such, but I loved how the outdoor lighting cast some weird colors. That lovely shadow belongs to photo buddy, Becky Johns. This was taken at the Benke Fish Ladder during the Old Town Jazz Fest.

Links after the break

• Last Monday’s post had a picture of a young duck.
• Tuesday’s post was chuck full of photos of Sleepy Zoo Kittehs.
• Wednesday was another installment of my Attraction Lost series (photos of abandoned tourist attractions).
• Thursday was a batch of photos of rainbow colored pools on a beach in Michigan.
• And on Friday, I had a guest post for the Elder Signs Press blog called “Cthulhu in Pop Culture.”
• Bonus Round: I had a post about getting rid of my cell phone’s data plan on Sunday.

Other links

• I got some link love on the Lansing Noise’s Tumblr. People like kitteh pictures.
• Writing buddy, David “Skippy” Crampton agreed with my post about your second novel being harder to write.
• Check out the, “Hey, Hot Shot!” photo competition. I don’t think I’ll submit anything. I don’t think I’m at the skill level where I can start submit stuff yet.
• Photojojo had a fun post about printing out photos to play pranks on friends.

Tomorrow: Photos of kids enjoying the zoo.

I decided today to cancel the data plan on my cell phone (gasp!). That’s a photo of my phone above. Read why I decided to do this after the break.

OK, so there are actually a few reasons I decided to cancel the data plan on my phone:

1. My phone isn’t really a smart phone. It is OK for email and checking Twitter, but that’s about it.
2. I didn’t see the point in spending the extra money on a plan when I didn’t have a super-fancy phone.
3. I’m trying to save money.
4. I’m trying to simplify my life a bit.

While the first two reasons are the most practical (if I had an iPhone or a Droid I wouldn’t be writing this post). But, the last two reasons are more about making sacrifices and trying to “unplug” a bit. I spend too much time checking email and Twitter on my phone. It is almost like breathing some times, it is that natural.

I’ve gone “cold-turkey” for the past couple days, not using my phone for email and/or Twitter and it has been oddly liberating. I figured, why not try it for at least a whole month and save myself some money in the process?

Of course I’ll still check my email and Twitter, I just won’t from my phone. And I can send texts from my phone to update Twitter (and to respond to DMs). We’ll see how long this lasts.

And once I am up for a new phone, and can afford a decent smart phone, I’ll get the data plan back. But that won’t be for a while. I am considering saving up for an iPod Touch, which has a better browser than my current phone, not to mention all those fun apps and games (and apparently now Netflix Streaming).

Would you ever consider getting rid of your data plan?