WIlliam Maroldo
06-03-2008, 09:15 PM
I was reading Anita's post on an American Bittern in flight. She used a very interesting concept, the use of elements from one photograph to make up for a problem in another. I was thinking along those same lines before I'd seen her post, but in relation to my own post concerning a clipped wing in another problem image. Last Sunday I'd came across Black Skimmers feeding, and got at least one image containing most of what I would hope for in a Skimmer photo, that being the lower bill cutting through the surface, with a photographic emphasis on the groove momentarily left in the water's surface. Lighting was good, the sun behind me. This was unusual for me, I've almost always seen skimmers feeding near dusk when lighting was dreadful and ISO 3200 might work, but talk about noise!. A plus in this photo would have been a glass smooth surface, and nice reflection but that was not to be. Nonetheless, out of a number of images taken, one filled the bill except for.... the dreaded clipped wing! Ouch! I'm not saying this is even close to a perfect image, or anything like that, but before I took it I had an idea of what I wanted to achieve.
My goal is to be technically proficient enough to avoid errors, and get my exposure, framing, and everything correct and leave post processing to fix minor problems, like a unsightly leaf in the water. I suppose even a professional can't be perfect all the time, and an otherwise excellent image can have flaws that can be rectified by post-processing.
So here's what I did. I found another image in the series of a skimmer with a similar wing position, masked and removed the part I needed. I also cut an area from yet another image for the area of water that was missing along with the clipped wing ( though I could have done this with a clone brush using the bottom image water as a source). I then combined these, merged the layers, and did a little seam cover-up with a clone brush, a little selective blurring, etc. I'm sure that if I spent more time I'd get a better result, but I'm using the image as a demonstration of a solution. So what do you guys, and gals, think?
Sony A-700, Tamron 200-500, 460mm, 1/1600 sec, F6.3, ISO 200 3:38PM Brazoria NWR
My goal is to be technically proficient enough to avoid errors, and get my exposure, framing, and everything correct and leave post processing to fix minor problems, like a unsightly leaf in the water. I suppose even a professional can't be perfect all the time, and an otherwise excellent image can have flaws that can be rectified by post-processing.
So here's what I did. I found another image in the series of a skimmer with a similar wing position, masked and removed the part I needed. I also cut an area from yet another image for the area of water that was missing along with the clipped wing ( though I could have done this with a clone brush using the bottom image water as a source). I then combined these, merged the layers, and did a little seam cover-up with a clone brush, a little selective blurring, etc. I'm sure that if I spent more time I'd get a better result, but I'm using the image as a demonstration of a solution. So what do you guys, and gals, think?
Sony A-700, Tamron 200-500, 460mm, 1/1600 sec, F6.3, ISO 200 3:38PM Brazoria NWR