johntwo

Like that . It's so typical of a dog experiencing something slightly difficult but enjoying it.

Thanks for your comments. Chocolate and chilli is not uncommon e.g. Chilli Con carne but I had never seen it in bread before. The problem with flour is not the availability of the flour but the fact that the demand has outstripped the availability of consumer size packaging capability. Waitrose has had the sense to use it's bulk supply for its in house bakery and make up its own 1Kg bags for sale in their stores. Good common sense except they won't deliver to this part of town. I think the supermarkets decided to cover different areas for the sake of maximising availability. We have to rely on ASDA, Sainsburys and Lidl - but we manage. I ended up buying a 16Kg sack from a mill but I bake a lot of bread over time so it will soon get used. It's damn good flower as well.

We're totally locked down but I finally managed to get some bread flour by going direct to a flour mill. The local supermarkets put it straight out on the shelves and it's gone before they make up any deliveries. Nothing doing in terms of wild life in the garden so I took a leaf out of BP's book and had a Bake in. The freezer is now up to scratch again. One I made earlier. Experimental Cheese and Herb loaf made with Self Raising Flour in the absence of Strong White. A bit on the heavy side but OK. Special request from our eldest - a Chocolate and Chilli loaf. Hope he likes it. Reminds me of the Marmite Cakes supposedly baked by Letitia Cropley in the Vicar of Dibley. Seeded malt Baps Milk Loaf. (Makes the best toast). That's my four images then.

Stella capture Stella. (sorry ) A worthy winner.

Great to see you getting settled Dee. It's been a long time coming. Looks like you have a Radio Amateur for a neighbour.

Fed up of gardening so I thought I would have a go. This is my effort. Lifted the shadows and then applied one of the Topaz Water Colour filters as a base and then manipulated it on three layers in Photoshop.

In Preston, there used to be a funeral Directors called A.J. Box and Co.

Propeller damage judging by the jagged edges on the left hand side?? I hate to see this sort of thing.

Still managed to read about your adventure Fuj. Could be quite disturbing I would think.

They featured on the BBC's Look North tonight except that they were descried as the "Low Paid" transport workers. I'm guessing you won't be arguing with that (under any circumstances).

"Simply Stunning" about covers it for me. Well done Polly.

Always been on the bucket list Fuj but whether we will ever get there...................... Thanks for posting.

One more for the pot (not literally).

The trees across from the house have always been a bit of a Sqirrel highway but one stopped for s snack today.

I thought this might cheer us up. VID-20200322-WA0000.mp4

Three nice ones. I like the medicinal gift. Dose: Take once (or twice) nightly with or without food. I particularly like the originality of the last one as well.

Apologies for the slow reaction to this. Thanks Hatter and thanks all for the comments. Mono was my first home and I still enoy it. Not surprisingly Fuj, Franc' Meadows Sutcliffe is one of my photography heros. Beken of Cowes started my interest in both photography and wooden sailing boats with his wonderful images of the great J Class Americas Cup contenders of the 1930's. Sutcliffe (early street really), Ansel Adams (landscape), Karsh (portraits) and Cartier Bresson (more contemporary Street) soon followed.

One fluttered past me today but was on its way somewhere. I also saw the first Hoverfly. Better start carrying a camera around the garden.

Inevitable choiceBP. Great image.

Can't be turned off unfortunately. Thanks for the thought though. I think I will just wait to see what Adobe come up with. I've had this problem for a bit and it comes and goes every time there is a Major PS update. I can't believe that I am alone with this. there must be others and I can only hope that they are looking for a solution. Thanks again Loki.

Yes?

Thanks for doing that Loki. Your suggestions are completely valid in that you are listing most of the things that were investigated during the marathon session. The only other thing that was tried was that if you boot PS whilst pressing the shift key, it loads without any plugins (useful to know). That produced no cure either. nor did a complete reset of PS to factory settings. I've taken the graphics processor out of the loop and that seems to cure the problem but although I do have a spare card to try a swap in order to prove the point, it is a 2Mb version of the same 4Mb card that I am using at the moment. I have also loaded PS onto my laptop which I can do legally and that does not display the same problem using the native GPU which also suggests that my desktop GPU is the cause. The trouble is that some of Photoshop's tools will not work without graphics processor support so leaving things as they are currently configured on my desktop , is not really an option. However, I am waiting to see what Adobe come up with before considering the purchase of a replacement card. Thanks again.

Thanks Loki. Yes, it was the first thing I tried but it is a pain to do because I have to reinstall quite a lot of plugins.

Polly suggested that I share the details of a problem with Photoshop. The November update of PS introduced a new option called "Select and Mask" which shows itself in the top tool bar any time you select one of the selection tools (Quick Select, Marquee, Lassoo etc.) Primarily designed for portraiture, it will select a portrait from the backgrount even to the extent of detecting individual hairs if you use the right brush. It works amazingly well and separates the selection onto a new layer and of course it is not confined to portraits. This means that you can process subject and background seperately, useful for instance if you have a difficult sky. That's how I have been creating those images where the subject is normal but the BG is manipulated. Since the big January update, the tool has been misbehaving in that on a regular basis but not all the time, there is an offset between where the cursor is on the screen and where the processing is taking place. The image is also elongated when the tool is selected and this offset occurs. It makes it impossible to make accurate adjustments to the mask before creating the new layer. Rebooting sometimes corrected this but mostly it doesn't and hence my marathon with Adobe support who I have to say, have shown a rare willingness to bottom the problem. They have now escalated the problem to a higher level and I await further news. Once things move on (I hope), I will post an update. P.S. It would be useful if any other members who use PS and see the same problem, could let me know. Two possibilities have been raised. The first is that Windows 10 had a major update at around about the same time and the second is the thought that there could be an incompatibility between my Graphics Card and PS as a result of the last PS update. If anyone detects the problems, it might be useful to compare notes.