Fun with Photo shop

When we went to Madame Tussauds wax museum , Prithvi was all in dreams about taking a picture with his favourite hero ‘Spider man’. He has seen the picture of Sathish with Spiderman. But to his disappointment and to our trouble, ‘Spider man’ was missing. It was a tough task for us to convince him and to go around the museum. So, I promised him that I will get that picture of him with his hero, without any clue of how I can do it.

Luckily, Sathish had installed latest and Original version of Adobe Photoshop (PS) in our laptop, which came to my rescue. It was amazing to see the numerous features of PS . Anything and everything you want with pictures can be done using PS, provided you have the patience and interest.

Now on to our Spiderman picture… I am only giving you an overview and not a step by step instruction, so that you will explore more :-)

• I took Sathish’s photo with Spider man as the base.

• I took an existing suitable photo of Prithvi.

• Now comes the challenge. Extracting Prithvi alone from the current background. There are number of techniques for extraction.

a. Lasso tool : This comes in handy to select only a particular object. So I selected Prithvi alone. Don't worry about the extra outer area selected. You can use the 'Magic wand tool' to delete the extra and get the accurate selection.

b. 'Quick Selection tool' could be used for selecting an area. But it does not work out properly for extracting a person.

c. Better than the above, I like the ‘Magic extractor’ , which is easy and more accurate. In the menu bar, select Image -> Magic extractor. It is easy to follow the instructions for selecting and deselecting and extract the image.

· Now we have 2 images, open the pictures and use the ‘Move tool’ to move Prithvi to Sathish’s Photo. This tool allows you to adjust the size and position. Once you are satisfied, click the green arrow in the bottom. So, you are done. You can change the direction if you need by using Imageà Rotate à Flip horizontal or Vertical.

· Next comes the Lighting adjustment to match the base photo. You can use Enhanceà Adjust lighting options to match the attached picture to the original. You can also use Filtersà Renderà Lighting Effects to adjust the lighting.

You are done. Try this out until my next post on PS tutorials..

A trip to Wales

Why this trip :
Human brain needs a break from the repetitive tasks to get revitalized and refreshed. So, we decided on a trip to get a break from our routine chores. Once we decided on a trip, the next question that popped in our mind was “Where”.

Where to go :
People look for mountains, sea shore and picturesque places as their break-away spots; as such places are energy fillers. These scenic places touch your heart through your eyes. If the place combines adventure also, then it becomes a favorite tourist place for all age groups. Wales is one of them.

A few words about Wales :

Wales is part of the UK and is about 200 miles North from London. It has population of 3 million and has 2 official languages Welsh and English. Wales is a land of mountains, rivers, lakes, gardens and castles and attracts millions of tourists every year.

Who : Gayathri , one of our friends was the one to suggest Wales. So, it was a group of 2 families. Sasi , Sathish and Prithvi plus Gayathri, Karthik and Manas (age 2).

When :

With workaholics like Karthik and Sathish who hate to take leave, the long weekend on Aug 27th was the only option left out.

How to go:

Obviously, we booked the train tickets, as none of us had car driving license to rent a car. We did regret for this later.

What to see:

I started googling to find the tourist attractions in Wales. But the list seemed to be endless with hundreds of castles and gardens and many scenic and adventure spots. So, we could not come up with a journey planner before the travel. Gayatri was the pioneer in this trip and booked the accommodation and train tickets for our travel.

The train journey - Aug 27, Friday:
We started on Friday night by train. The crowd in the platform was nothing short of the train crowd in Chennai during Diwali long weekend. As the platform number was announced just few minutes before the train start time, we had to literally run to catch the train and got squeezed in the crowd.

This was my first travel in a long distance train in UK. It was a Virgin train (private) and the interior of the coaches were like that of an aeroplane though not that much cramped. Also there were some family seats wherein there was a table in between two rows of seats facing each other – a dining table kind of setup. This was convenient to eat and to use a laptop. We reached Prestatyn station around 9.30 pm. We reached our accommodation, Prest Haven Sands Caravan park by 10 pm. Yes, we chose a Caravan as our abode for the three days of our trip. Caravans are cottages in the shape of a van with bedrooms and kitchen.

We had packed our dinner (ready made chapatis and panneer butter masala) for that night. As we chose a caravan as our accomodation, we bought a lot of kitchen items and grocery so that we could cook and eat rather than relying upon western food on all the three days.

Day 1 :
After a good night sleep, we started our day 1 trip around 11 am with a heavy downpour as soon as we got into the taxi to Rhyl. But luckily rain stopped after that. So, we went to the tourist information centre to collect the details. Unfortunately, there were no tourist buses and we had to rely on public transport. Based on London experience, we thought it should be fine but later realized that our assumption was wrong. The trains were less frequent and to make things worse, many were cancelled because of long weekend. Somehow, we took a train and reached Llandudno around 2 pm. The train journey was a picturesque one alongside seashore with mountains and valleys and served a good feast to our eyes.. We had lot of fun while videographers , Sathish and Karthik were shooting with Tamil commentary.

About Llandudno and Great Orme:

Llandudno is world's largest resort, uniquely situated between the Great and Little Ormes with 2 wonderful beaches North shore and the quiet West shore.
To reach Llandudno summit there are 2 modes - tramway and cable car. Great Orme tramway is still the only cable hauled tramway operating on British public roads.

The Great Orme is a wonderland of nature and history. There are around 500 million visitors every year.

When we reached Llandudno, we were convinced that the trip was worth it. The coastline walk beside the bluish green sea was a wonderful experience. As the Cable car to 'Great Orme' was cancelled because of heavy winds , we took the tram to reach the summit. .

As strong breeze flapped our face, we enjoyed the scenery, which was a perfect blend of sea , mountains and valleys. There was also a restaurant and a children play area. We spent some time there and started for Conwy to see the castle. By the time, we reached , it was 5.30 and they closed the entry. So, we just took pictures from outside.

When we reached Conwy, we were surprised to see that the whole city was surrounded by a wall and we started our trekking on the wall. We could take a glimpse of the entire city and mountains from the wall. After an exhaustive day, we reached Havens around 8.30 pm and ordered for a Pizza in Papa John's.

Sorry, I did not mention about 'Havens' park'till now.
It was acres of land filled with a lot of caravans. Traditionally Caravans are mobile, but for the experience it offers, companies have setup permanent stationary caravans as a choice of accommodation. We stayed in one such stationary caravan and Presthaven sands is a caravan park with numerous caravans on a beach side with dedicated entertainment complex, department stores, eateries, kids play area, Go-Karting, swimming pool etc. Many had come there just to be in the Caravans and enjoy the amenities inside.

We started planning for the next day trip while we were waiting for the Pizza. We decided to go to Caernarfon (pronounced Ca(r)navon), as there were couple of attractions.

Day 2 :

We got ready soon the next day and went to the station around 10.30 am. But after reaching there , we came to know that there was no direct train to Caernarfon and we had to go till Bangor and take a bus from there. To add to our woe, the train to Caernarfon was only at 11:45 and also the wait time for the connecting bus was another hour. Then we tried different means like taxi but it worked out be very expensive. So, we waited for the train and reached Caernarfon only by 2:30 pm. We were damn hungry, when we reached Carenafon. So, we opened the Tamarind rice and curd rice that we had packed. It was a good idea by Gayatri, otherwise we would have starved. The boxes got empty in no time :-)

Caernarfon castle was one of the most impressive architecturally of all the castles in Wales. It was built by King Edward I around 1200 AD. It was good to see that the towers were complete and not ruined. It seems there had been some renovations inside, which had retained the castle till now. We started climbing the tallest tower called 'Eagle tower'. It was tough climbing the narrow spiral steps with the strong wind pushing us in one direction but the effort was paid off, as the sea view from the top was really beautiful.. On the way back, there was a museum displaying the castle history and about the warriors who fought in British wars.

We set off early from Caernarfon and took a taxi to Llanberis for the Llanberis lake railway.

The lake view was good but we missed the popular 'Snowdonia mountain railway'. We could not get the tickets, as there were lot of tourists because of long weekend. The llanberis train took us around the lake. But it was bit boring as it was going very slowly. But as usual, we had our own fun and we could hear lot of Tamil voices around. It is good to know that Tamilians and Indians have reached all corners of the World.

That night we reached our Caravan and cooked veg Biriyani for dinner. As we did not want to miss the fun in the Havens, we went to the Casino in the night and played some games and of course lost some money and came back. The entire park crowd was inside that entertainment complex. It was surprising to see lot of kids playing with money in the Casino. There were also dance shows. We got tired and got back and had our Biriyani. Wherever we go, Tamilians cannot do away with rice. Our stomach is not happy if we don't eat rice for a day. Hope u agree with me :-)

We played cards (Rummy) for sometime and Gayatri pretended to be an amateur asking about the rules but finally won the game :-). It was good fun.

Day 3:

The next day we packed Maggi for train and Karthik and Sathish took the kids to the swimming pool. We bid good bye to our Caravan and headed towards the train. We reached home tired around 3:30 pm.

It was a great enjoy and we had lot of fun . It was true that we could not cover many places or visit any adventure spots, but our 'Why ?' was answered.. We got revitalized to continue our routine :-)

This trip will remain in our memory forever.

A trip to London Sea Life Aquarium and Greenwich Royal Observatory : 19-Jun-2010

Our trip journey continues today.. We started @ 8.30 in the morning and reached Stratford by national rail @ 9.00 am. We boarded the train to Waterloo @ 9.40. The jubilee line in Stratford station has a rich and new look compared to the other lines.

This trip was more interesting , as couple of Sathish's colleagues with their family joined us. The total number was 9 including kids, Prithvi (age 5), Bharath (age 4) and Surya(age 1). So, it was fun all the way in train and we reached our destination point Waterloo @ 10.30 am.

Sea life aquarium

Sea life aquarium is very close to the London eye. In fact, it was managed by the same Merlin entertainment that operates the London Eye. I was not very much excited about this trip , as I am not much fascinated by aquariums. But this one was quite different. The arrangement was like that of a tunnel and some of the fish tanks were so tall and huge that it spanned across many levels of the aquarium. This helped in getting a view of the fishes from different angles, which made it more interesting. It also gave the feel of touching the fish directly when we touched the glass. So, the kids were too scared to touch the glass.

When we were enjoying seeing the colorful fishes in one side of the tank, we felt something fishy (!!) on the other side. A giant sized lobster, which was almost hiding under the rock, started moving. Then , there were lot of colorful sea anemones and star fish , which were really beautiful.

Then came the Ray fish , which is a type of bat fish but was huge in size. It was looking very normal until we saw its back closer. For a moment, i got frightened.. it was looking like a white ghost in the movie 'Jagan mogini'.

Just contrary to this was the Jelly fish, which still lingers in my mind. As the tank was illuminated with colored lights that kept changing colours, the fish looked awesome. It was too good to be described in words and we did not feel like moving to the next.. I was reminded of the shiny and glowing creatures shown in 'Avatar' movie. When I saw the movie, I thought those creatures were animated ones but now have a feeling that they could be real.

Next were the biggies, sharks and the big Ray fishes. The sharks were really big and about 10 ft long. It looked very shiny but the fact is, its skin is so rough like a salt paper. As we saw them very close from different angles and from different floors, Surya kutty also enjoyed and started making ooh aah sounds.

We moved on to some colorful ones as shown in the movie 'Finding Nemo'. There were some funny looking fishes like the giraffe faced fish and the stone fish. The stone fish exactly looked liked a stone. It was hard to believe it to be a fish, until it made some movements. The stone and sand arrangements were such that it resembled exactly as the fish colours... Sea horses and turtles were also nice to watch.

Finally , it was time to move out. The only disappointment was that there were no dolphins and dolphin shows. But, overall we enjoyed the aquarium.

We got hungry.. so we went to the Subway to have a quick lunch. After lunch, came the exciting part for the kids.. boat ride to Greenwich. Boat is another means of transport for London. We got the tickets and boarded the boat. The seats inside the boat were just like in an airplane and there were few seats outside just open to sky. We took the outer ones for sight seeing. The boat was going so fast, that it splashed water on us. As it was a windy day, we felt very cold. London's weather is very unpredictable. It is very hot on one day and the very next day it swings to the other extreme. Even the forecasts are not very accurate. So, it is always better to go out with winter clothing and an umbrella.

Prime Meridian

Finally we reached Greenwich Royal observatory... This houses the Greenwich mean time and prime meridian , which separates the East from the West just like the equator separates the North and the South.

The Observatory was mainly built to improve navigation at sea and 'find the so-much desired longitude of places' – one's exact position east and west – while at sea and out of sight of land, by astronomical means. King Charles II appointed John Flamsteed as his first Astronomer Royal in March 1675, who did his research here. Finding the longitude @ sea proved to be a major challenge in those days and due to which there were many disasters in sea. Finally the clock invented by John Harrison to find the local time @ sea helped in calculating the longitude , which changed navigation forever. The clocks by Harrison were in display and the longitude /latitude calculations and different time zones of different countries based on longitude were displayed and explained.

We had to wait in a long queue to take a photo on the line with one foot on the Eastern and another on western hemisphere.

Telescopes and clocks used in ancient times to measure time and longitude were present. Dolphin sundial is one. There are 2 dolphins facing each other and the exact location where their tail end of the fins shadows meet give the actual time.. We checked the time and oh yeah.. it was accurate.

If you have a thirst for astronomical science , this observatory is a must visit for you. There are also other museums and parks in the surroundings.

As it started raining , we could not sit in the nearby park. So, we headed straight to East Ham for our dinner. We chose East Ham as this is the place where there are many South Indian restaurants. We took a train to Canary Wharf from Greenwich, from where we took the Jubilee line to West ham. Unfortunately trains to East ham got cancelled suddenly. So, we had to take 2 buses to reach East ham. By the time we reached East ham it was already 8 pm. We chose Ananda Bhavan as our restaurant for dinner as suggested by our friends. We had South Indian Buffet meal that was good except for the rice, which felt semi cooked. One thing , I wanted to highlight here is the food in London. When I was in the US, I used to yearn for Dosas and other Indian food, as it was very rare to find any Indian restaurant. In fact, many Indian vegetables are a rare find in the US markets. However, the situation could be different now as it was a long time back. But, here in London, there are many Indian restaurants and all veggies are available. So, I really don't miss any Indian food here.

After dinner , we took buses to reach home @ 10 pm. As we got very tired, we drifted to sleep immediately.

See you again with more trip experience...........

My first London trip : 22-May-2010

It was a Saturday afternoon and Sathish suddenly said we shall go around London. Initially we had planned for the city tour the following week after taking London pass ( a pass with entrance tickets for various attractions in London).

We started around 2 in the afternoon. I topped up my Oyster card with £10. Oyster card is a pre-paid card for using public transportation in London, using which one can add money to it and use it like a train cum bus pass which has to be swiped in the bus and in the train station entrance. The advantage is it, that it has a per day ceiling amount. Even if we travel many times per day ,the maximum we will be charged in the card would be 3.9£ in bus and 6.3£ in train. As travel is very expensive in London, everyone goes for Oyster card as it provides easy access to train/bus without having to buy a ticket and with a reduced price.

It was my first train journey in London and I was really excited travelling in the underground tube. I was initially confused with the different lines (district line/circle line/picadilly line etc) that goes to different directions but could differentiate it later with the color coding used. One can use a tube map to go anywhere without having to ask anyone. But the major problem is random train cancellations (this is because of the various renovations happening in London as a preparation for the 2012 Olympics in London). So , we have to really watch out for the active lines before boarding train. All routes are interconnected. So, one can easily reach their destination, even if they take a longer route.
We crossed Stratford, where the stadium for the Olympics is getting constructed. Massive construction..It would be a lifetime experience if we get a chance to watch Olympics..

We alighted in Aldgate East to take a district line for Tower hill and reached tower hill to see the Tower of London and the Tower bridge (There is a misconception that Tower bridge is the London bridge but it is not true. London bridge is a old bridge opposite to tower bridge and it is a normal bridge). It was a huge bridge above Thames river and tourists throng the place. There was a big queue for the river cruise. But the water was not clear. (One shocking thing for me about London is the cleanliness. People litter and spit on the streets. But there are lot of greenery's everywhere with lot of parks and gardens). Tower of London is riverside fortress , usually remembered as a place of imprisonment. Many princes and queens were imprisoned here and later murdered.

As it was a hot summer day which is most awaited in a cold country , people had dressed up so freely (so we had a good sight seeing :-)). Sathish clicked lot of snaps as usual and Prithvi started asking for something to eat. So we had cone ice creams and it was yummy (6 pounds - 480 rs is really expensive for ice cream.. isn't it.?. as it is only 2 weeks for me in London, cannot avoid converting).

We took another train to reach Westminster (most of the main attractions in London are close by.. with just few trains and of course lot of walking we can cover all important attractions.). We came out of Westminster station to see a tall building .. oh. yeah it is the Big Ben . In all our movies, this is how London is shown. Big Ben is the huge clock tower and is part of the Houses of parliament. Looking at the building, we can understand how well it is maintained as it looks really new though it is built 1000 yrs ago.

Walking along Big Ben to the left in the opposite is the 'London eye'. As i said, we had a separate plan for visiting these places, we did not go inside but just had a glimpse from outside. 'London eye' is the giant observation wheel and is the second highest in the world and offers fascinating views over the whole of London.

If you walk to the right of Westminster, you will reach the Westminster Abbey. This is a old church and it serves as a place of Royal ceremonials. Princess Diana's funeral was held here.

A few minutes walk from there will take you to the royal palace of Buckingham, which is the the Queen's residence. It is a huge palace with complete security protection. 'Guards change' is an event here, in which the palace guards, in their red tunics and tall bearskin hats, are changed at 11am each morning. We were almost exhausted by that moment and wanted to relax. So, we went to James park close to Buckingham palace. There are several parks and gardens around the palace. We had a good time there. Prithvi played foot ball with a cute Brit gal and we enjoyed sightseeing (only the garden ), having tea that we took in a flask.

After few minutes rest, we continued to Trafalgar square. This houses the huge monuments of Nelson and other warriors , who fought and won the battle of Trafalgar against Napoleon.The main structure worth seeing at Trafalgar square is the tall Nelson's column, which is a tower over which Admiral Nelson stands.

Another 10 mins walk, we reached Picadily circus. It is a shopping place and there are lot of clubs and bars everywhere. It seems, day never ends here. We can see Britain's richness here.
Suddenly, bell rang in our bellies.. oops.. It is 8.30. As day is long in summer, one can hardly realize the time. So, we hunted for a food place and reached Pizza hut. Myself and Sathish had the only veggie option available but Prithvi enjoyed chicken wings. It was 9.30 by the time we finished dinner and took the trains to reach home @ 10.30. Overall, it was a wonderful day !!!

More to come..............