Black and blue

This morning I finished the flagtail, completing its fins - refining the ones I did yesterday and adding the pelvic and pectoral fins today. I then hot-footed it across to the Aquarium to meet Jonny for him to look over the painting and check that I have the details right and that I haven't done something silly like forget to paint in a fin or something!

After getting a thumbs up I then returned to the studio to scan the painting to the computer. I then start the process of preparing it for use on the ID signage. I open up the scanned image and enlarge it so that I can easily see where I am going with my adjustments. As the black that I painted for the background never scans in as 100% I have to change this so that it looks strong and dense as a backlit sign.

The photo editing software we use is Photoshop and I select the pencil tool and set its width to a size that I can trace round my painted fish. This setting has to be changed a few times, altering the pen size from 30 pixels to 1 pixel, as I work my way around the fish shape negotiating intricate spaces between fins and open mouths and back to the large easy expanses. Recently, I have taken to choosing a colour that is easy to see against the black as it makes knowing where I have been and where I need to go a lot simpler to keep track of. Trying to work 100% black onto 80% black is far too hard on the eyes at times... so I'm all for making things easier.

This photo shows the pen tool size (the white circle with a dot inside) and the blue line I am putting around the fish. I have to get the blue line as close to the fish as possible without going over the fish.

Once I have gone around the whole fish I then make the pen tool size bigger and block in the rest of the black background to be completely blue.

Now with the dropper tool I select the blue colour and then the "colour range" option. This creates a mask encompassing the blue area, enabling me to change anything within that area without affecting the rest of the image - i.e. the fish itself. I click on the colour block in the tool palette and change the settings of the black to 100% and then with the bucket tool selected, click on the blue area and it switches to black in one easy move.

Once I am sure I have no stray patches of colour or "not quite black" dots that I might have missed I change the images colour mode to CYMK from RGB and save it as a tiff file. This is then put into the relevant tank folder in the Aquarium folder on the computer, ready to be added to the ID file. Later in the afternoon I added the photo to the ID file and typed in the relevant details. It is now ready to be printed and then put up in the Aquarium, which I hope to do tomorrow ready for the start of the Easter school breaks which start this coming weekend.

Again it was a fabulously sunny warm day.. hard to believe it is only March. This afternoon I did an "ID sweep"... where I walk the zoo grounds and animal houses checking ID signs for wear and tear and cleaning cobwebs and muck off where necessary. I make a list of what needs doing as I do my walk so that nothing gets forgotten. So now I have a few jobs to do from that list tomorrow... a few replacement IDs to be printed and some more intense cleaning with anti-graffitti wipes for some signs and interpretation panels.

As I walked around it was pleasing to note that there is a lot of bird song noticeable in the zoo. Walking by one aviary (which is close to the building in which I work) I smiled as I listened to particular favourites of mine.... the Sumatran laughing thrushes (Garrulax bicolor). We have several pairs around the zoo and they all sing and call between each other and they have such a beautiful call, it's a real delight to hear. Melodic and warbling, they sing for ages. Another call I like to hear is that of the Victoria crowned pigeons (Goura victoria) they have this amazing booming call, deep and resonant like the noise you can make blowing across the top of an empty bottle. As I went by their aviary one was making this noise outside and it's partner was indoors returning the call. Wonderful. They bow their heads tucking their 'chins' to their throats. In another aviary the Von der Deckens hornbill (Tockus deckeni) was making a peculiar call that I would find hard to describe, but it was most intriguing so I stopped to listen for a minute or so. And amongst such exotic species there are all the wild birds that use the zoo as their home... sparrows, starlings, blue tits, great tits, wrens, collared doves, feral pigeons, coots and mallards - to name but a few. There's such a lovely array of sound and on a day like today it just lifts the spirits to notice and listen to it.