Here's looking at you, kid.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

134112

From the launch grandstands at Kennedy Space Center (not during a launch). Used puppet warp to increase the heads to about twice the normal size and a warp transform to fill the frame and broaden the shoulders. Fill layer with gradient mask for bg color (left some color on the subjects. Another fill layer to paint in a little gore. A little twisted Casablanca threesome ;-)...

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Nancy Bell]

Well done! Love those bloody drips from the one vulture. Looks just like they are eyeing some rotten specimen! Maybe a bit more room at the top?

[Hazel Grant]

Nice work and love the caption....I havent been that close to these guys so would not have noticed the transform. The color adds to the mood.

[Judy Howle]

Scariest buzzard image I've seen... definitely Halloween-ish. Nice transformation into creepy critters!

[Jackie Schuknecht]

The guy in the middle cracks me up. Like the pale pink and the blood drips too. Very clever to use the puppet warp tool for the heads.

[Anita Bower]

Nice work. Thanks for the description of your editing. I wish Adobe Elements had puppet warp! The enlarged heads was a good idea. I like how the one turkey vulture is pecking at the other. I'm fond of turkey vultures.

[Cheryl Slechta]

I think the one in the middle is charming. Michael, were these Black vultures or Turkey vultures? I think Black vultures are actually kind of pretty but I don't think that about Turkey vultures. The blood dripping is a nice (and creepy!) touch.:S3:

[Kerry Perkins]

Interesting treatment and I like it. The color really is creepy and your alteration of certain features makes these guys even more charming than usual. Aren't these the guys that eat rubber weather stripping off of cars? :Whoa!:

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Nancy, Hazel, Judy, Jackie, Anita, Cheryl, Kerry,

Thanks much for your comments. They are much appreciated. They are black vultures. We don't see these in California, so I don't know much about their behavior. Turkey vultures have the red skin like, well, turkeys and they also have feathers up over the back of their heads so their heads look even smaller than they are. These black vultures with more skin on the neck and head have the appearance at least of larger heads comparatively which gave me the idea of enhancing them even more ;-) ... These three were part of a group of 30-40 of them roosting near the launch grandstands at KSC... they were kinda creepy without enhancement.

Happy Halloween! (The most celebrated day of the year here in Santa Cruz - I kid you not. People put up Halloween lights & decorations. That's my town.)

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Diane Miller]

Great transformation and concept!

Anita, if you have the equivalent of Edit > Transform > Distort or Warp (or Free Transform) you can do a lot. I don't know the menu structure of Elements, but you probably have some of that capability. I should start checking out Elements -- if Adobe stays on their current path, a lot of people will be switching to it over the next few years when they are forced into hew operating systems that will no longer run CS6 or whatever recent version they have.

[Anita Bower]

Great transformation and concept!

Anita, if you have the equivalent of Edit > Transform > Distort or Warp (or Free Transform) you can do a lot. I don't know the menu structure of Elements, but you probably have some of that capability. I should start checking out Elements -- if Adobe stays on their current path, a lot of people will be switching to it over the next few years when they are forced into hew operating systems that will no longer run CS6 or whatever recent version they have.
Diane: Elements 10 (my version) has Skew, Distort and Transform Perspective. I use them, especially Skew. The limitation is that I can't grab something inside the image and transform it. I've checked, and Elements 12 doesn't have Puppet Warp either. Maybe in a new version, or in a plug-in. Thanks.

[Diane Miller]

What you want to do (I assume its possible in elements) is make a selection of the appropriate part of the image, copy it to a new layer (Ctrl-J in PS) and distort that. Then mask out any extra stuff.