Hiding in the Grass..

[dankearl]

Red Tail Hawk
D610, iso500, 600mm (300 w/2x), 1/2000, f6.3

AA8_6437bpn.jpg (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=180205&stc=1&d=1551143884)

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the flight angle, sharpness, setting and composition. I wish the OOF grass didn't block the body and head. Nice image Dan.

[Arthur Morris]

Nice bird and sharp with a good EXP. The o-o-f grasses in front of the bird are distracting as is the rather distinct seed head(???) above the near wing. It would be easier to lose the latter than the former if you so chose.

with love, artie

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Dan. Following on from Artie's suggestions I did a quick edit...hope you don''t mind. I used the spot healing brush set to "darken' mode" to get rid of the distractions over the wings, and the clone tool for the section above the near wing. I didn't touch the dark area touching the near wing. Cheers.

P.S. just noticed I missed a bit at the tail tip...easily fixed using the same method.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the edits by Paul, nice and sharp, I see some clone artifacts near the bottom edge of the frame

TFS

[gail bisson]

Reposts improve the image. Do you have the next frame where he (presumably) cleared the grasses?
If mine, I would also clone out the white patch on the chin,
Gail

[Paul Burdett]

Thanks Arash. I didn't touch the bottom right corner if that's the place you refer to?. I just new that the healing tool set to darken mode would do the trick...i would spend much longer than the two minutes I spent if it were my image. Cheers.

[Arthur Morris]

Well done on the repost Paul. Note to all: using Content Aware fill for some repair work is way, way better than using the Clone Stamp Tool. Good spotting my Gail on the o-fo-f grass on the chin,. Now that the image is cleaned up a bit I would tone down the bright piece of grass between the feet.

Paul, how do you set the SPB to darken?

thanks with love, artie

[dankearl]

Thanks Paul, you did a nice job.
I did not mind the grass as I thought it was just natural to the scene and did not block the face.
The next 2 frames were sharp but had crappy wing poses.
Thanks to all for the comments.

[Dorian Anderson]

This is a nice look at this bird, but the frame is just way too bust for me. Paul did some nice additional cloning, but that's a bit heavy handed for my taste. As Gail asked, one where
he was higher would have been nice. Bummer the next two frames once didn't yield good wing poses, but that's flight photography!

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Dorian: Please explain " bust" and "heavy handed"...cheers.

Artie: I used the SHB (spot healing brush). At the top of the window you can select the Mode...in this case, "darken" (learnt this trick from one of hundreds of tutorials I have). Also under "Type"...I selected "content aware"...as opposed to "create texture" or "proximity match"..which are less effective here. I didn't try making a selection and using content aware fill...but I guess that could be as good if not better. My way involved a single "swipe" along the offending section and seems to have worked ok in this instance. Cheers.

P.S. Are you posting the winning images of the B&H bird contest, or just notifying winners?

[John Mack]

Really like this one. The take off pose is nice. Yes too bad about those grasses in the foreground. Still can't believe how dark these are compared to the ones i see on the east coast.