Rained Out at the Frankenmuth, Michigan Auto Fest 2010

It has been difficult to get good photo-
graphs at this years Custom Car show. Rained out at the Woodward Dream Cruise 2010 and the same happened earlier today at the Frankenmuth, Michigan Auto Fest 2010, rain! We watched as a few die hard car buffs drove by us on Main Street in Frankenmuth, but it was raining too hard to expose my camera without protection of some kind, which I don't have.

This image you see is from the 2009 Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise in Metro Detroit. I used PhotoPaint to crop and adjust the Tone Curve to deepen the image and saved that file. Opening it in Paint.NET I applied the Effects> Artistic> Ink Sketch> for the line work. I used that file in PhotoPaint again and applied a Grunge frame to it from Filter Forge's frames. Then I added the lens flare with KPT's Collection for the flash of brilliant light on the image. I used Filter Forge's frames a second time adding a film frame to the piece. I upped the saturation by 15 to enhance color.

So I have this image for you to enjoy and apologize for no new car photographs from the shows this year. If I had protected equipment that was waterproof and a rain coat we would have gotten some photographs. I imagine it will be sunny and nice tomorrow for the rest of the Auto Fest. Unfortunately I have other plans! The blame goes on the rain.

Red Chevy Wagon circa 1956

Before SUV's and Mini Vans there were the Station Wagons for families. Roomy and stylish this custom wagon is a beauty.

The original photograph was taken by my brother Kent M Gatzka at the Frankenmuth, Michigan Auto Festival of 2009. I applied similar techniques in PhotoPaint and Paint.NET as I did in the previous post. Highlighting the sun flares with KPT's Collection Lens Flare filter.

Recently I have been working on a laptop with Windows 7 OS and learning how to Network and transfer music files from my main PC to it. Windows 7 seems to be an improvement over Vista from what I gather reading about it and using it. I still have Windows XP on my main PC.

The only thing I could not get it to do was share the Epson printer over the Network. I still haven't figured that one out. So I swap to a USB port from one to the other and get the ability to Print with either unit. I believe that Windows 7 has the most up to date driver for the printer and somehow that confuses XP.

It has a lot to do with making folders sharable if you want to transfer files. I also have brought over all of my images from previous posts of gatzkART to the laptop, and included my Alaska vacation photographs as well.

Working with Windows 7 is still a challenge. But I have been able to use Wifi at different locations and downloaded: Open Office; Paint.NET; Picasa 3; and a few updates too. I would like to have my Corel products on the laptop but they need a Windows 7 compatible license number which I don't have for the older products. Right now it is cost prohibitive to upgrade to the newer programs that I'd like to add.

It will also connect to the Internet through my dial up connection but is very slow connection speed. Usually I get 45.2 kbps and that's it. I like the Wifi of course! I just have to buy more coffee and visit the places where connections are free!

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Alison Krauss - Rich Woman
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Milestone 300th Post - 1955-56 Chevy

Three hundredth blog post! It is my pleasure to have been able to have this blog. And I hope you have enjoyed it thus far. I have done my best to provide an interesting and informative narrative, with high quality images.

I plan on continuing to bring you more informative content and images.

Today's image is a 1955-56 Chevy Convertible. I used similar graphic techniques as other recent images. The photograph was taken at the Frankenmuth, Michigan Auto Festival 2009 by Kent M. Gatzka.

I used Paint.NET for the Ink Sketch look and KPT's Collection Lens Flare for the highlighting the gleam of the sunlight. In PhotoPaint I re-sampled the image and added a small black frame. I also used the Tone Curve to give more depth to the colors.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Polly Come Home Cover
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Buick Interior Circa 1970's

A Buick interior from around the 1970's era, this image is only slightly mani-
pulated. I wanted to show as much detail as possible with just a touch of creativity.

This is from another photograph taken by Kent M. Gatzka at the Frankenmuth, Michigan Auto Festival 2009. The large steering wheel, and speedometer and controls are truly amazing compared to the newer digital displays and functionality of today's interior dashboards.

If you recognize this dash and the interior let me know what year and model you think it is, leave me a comment on this page.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
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