Purple Gallinule Balance

[Billy Gilbert]

These birds sure like to climb to the top of very thin branches in search of flowers.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/2500/gallinulebalancexw3.jpg
Taken:
Green Cay Wetlands. 1DMKIII, 300mm 2.8 IS, F2.8, 1/640", ISO800, no fill.

[Arthur Morris]

Love thepose and the wide framing. The light o-o-f areas right behind the bird are problematic. You might try doing to Hue/Sat and reducing the SAT of the CYAN and see how those wings look.

[Anita Rakestraw]

Really cool moment you've caught there! The light areas behind the bird can be removed (if you are okay with that) without too much trouble. I love this for its unusual pose; the colors and clarity look very nice to me as well!

[Billy Gilbert]

Thanks Arthur and Anita. I'll try that and post it.
*edit* Here is a quick try.
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3528/gallinulebalancedarkjt7.jpg

[Arthur Morris]

The light areas behind the bird can be removed (if you are okay with that) without too much trouble.

I need to disagree with Anita as to the "without too much trouble." Doing it properly (which would require good QMing techniques) would be quite time consuming because the feeet and the toes are involved. In addition, there are not many evnly patterned areas in the ORIG; this would make it difficult to get source material.

While scrolling up to see the image I saw Billy's work with the clone stamp, Good try and thanks for the effort but the clone marks are obvious. How do I know? I used to do the same thing till I got busted. QMs are the only help here and using them would require a lot of skill and a lot of effort.

[Mike Tracy]

Hey Billy, glad to see you on here.

I also like all the elements that have been brought forth. I think that your edit actually introduced some other distracting elements. I see circles where you cloned the white spots.

[Kaushik Balakumar]

like the pose here. re-post looks bit abnormal with smudges...

[Billy Gilbert]

Yea my quick attempt seems to have done more harm that good, but its a little more difficult than a typical clone job.

[Anita Rakestraw]

Arthur, maybe our definitions of "without too much trouble" are different! LOL! Actually, he didn't do such a bad job, esp. around the legs, but he's just not finished! With a little more work, he'll have it. (and agreed, if you have hundreds of images to process, that's probably "too much trouble." (-:

[Arthur Morris]

Yea my quick attempt seems to have done more harm that good, but its a little more difficult than a typical clone job.

That's what I said :) And that is why folks need to learn to use Quick Masks for seamless repairs.

[Arthur Morris]

Arthur, maybe our definitions of "without too much trouble" are different! LOL! Actually, he didn't do such a bad job, esp. around the legs, but he's just not finished! With a little more work, he'll have it. (and agreed, if you have hundreds of images to process, that's probably "too much trouble." (-:

Regardless of one's definition of "too much trouble, this is a difficult repair. And the only way to save Billy's (very) bad job would be with QMs... Sorry, but the facts are the facts :)

[Rod Wiley]

Selective color works well here. I think the thing we must always be careful of is that the area we are filling must be a continuation of the texture surrounding it. Using selective color allows us to Paste Into that area making it more natural than cloning.I hope this helps Rod

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Billy !!!!! Nice photographing with you at Green Cay I like the action captured particularly the leg action Only the proverbial cleaner bg would have made it better

I like the Rod's clean up work Not bad and working form a jpeg !!!!

[Arthur Morris]

Rod's clean-up is much better. Billy: did you do any BKGR cloning in your ORIG post?

[Billy Gilbert]

I used selective color and masking and came up with this, looks a lot better, thanks for the good idea!
Arthur, the original file has no cloning at all.
http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/1733/selectivecolortrytm5.jpg

[Chris Dodds]

Pretty cool pose captured!

[Arthur Morris]

The last repost is better still. Chris Dodds!?!?!?!?

[Mike Tracy]

For better or worse I quickly used the blur tool to get rid of some of the artifacts and noise in the more prominent areas.

[Anita Rakestraw]

Smoothed out the edges of the modified area a bit more.