Anna's Hummingbird

[Lisa Williams]

My first post here. I took this image of a sleeping Anna's Hummingbird in June of 2007 while on a trip to California. I think the image would look better if I could soften or change the light area (a far away flower) below the bird. I have tried cloning, copying, etc in Photoshop CS2 with no luck, I just make it worse. Any comments are appreciated.
Canon 20D (I now have a 1D Mark III)
1/250
AP
0 EV
F6.3
ISO 1600
400mm
No flash
AVG Metering mode
Taken under heavy canopy of leaves.

Lisa

[Lance Peters]

Hi Lisa - welcome to the BPN family - Lots of helpful people here.

Sweet looking bird - I like the head angle and the eye contact

Bird does look a little soft on my screen - you could selectivley sharpen the bird a little in P.S. The ligth area's you mention are somewhat distracting and of course anything can be fixed in P.S. just a matter of time it takes, however I always try and get the HARD TO FIX things right in the camera to start with, the easy to fix things can then be taken care of in P.S.

Not sure about the crop... I would maybe do something like this (cropped and sharpened)
(Hope you dont mind me making suggestions and reposting)

Anyway - nice first post.

KEEP THEM COMING.

[Dan Brown]

Hi Lisa. Nice shot in low light. It looks like maybe it has been over worked somehow, maybe too much Shadow/highlights filter or something? In the repost, I was able to do a few quick masks and clones to cover the bright areas that you mentioned. You might want to invest in Robert O'Tooles APTATS to learn to do these QM's.

Dan Brown

[Lisa Williams]

Lance,
Thank you for the comments. I really like the crop you did - since he's looking right cutting off more of the left side worked. Your sharpening also looks better, I think I may have been afraid of oversharpening him.

[Lisa Williams]

Dan,
Thank you for the response. I like the way you took out the light area. I didn't do any shadow/highlights or filtering, just tried to clone out the light underneath - but couldn't, and sharpened. May I ask: is Robert O'Tooles APTATS a book or information I can find online?

[Gus Cobos]

Great capture Lisa,
I like these little guys. The repost from Dan covers all of the techs. Looking foward for your next one...

[Lance Peters]

Lisa - Roberts APTAT is a CD you can purchase online form roberts site....

http://robertotoolephotography.com/Asset.asp?AssetID=8973&AKey=8T5M8YEK

Really is very very good - and easy as well.

:)

[Lisa Williams]

Lance,
Thanks for the link. I went to the site and have it bookmarked to order the CD tomorrow when they are open. Thanks.

Gus, thanks for the comment.

[Doug Brown]

Hi Lisa! Looks like you had a nice cooperative subject there. I'd like to see the unedited version of this crop if possible. You can post it in this thread. The photo does look a little overprocessed. The bright areas are easy to fix, and you've got an excellent resource in the APTATS CD. Thanks for posting!

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Lisa Very glad to have you posting with us !!!

Great suggestion by Doug to post the unedited image !!! Will give it a try!!!

Btw while making the image do pay close attention to the bg and move around a bit. For this one it looks that you could have gone left and eliminated some of the bright reflections !!! You did pretty well with the exposure Would suggest placing the bird more left and down Congrats on your new camera !!! Will make a difference in action with the great burst rate !!!

[Lisa Williams]

Doug and Alfred,
As requested here is the crop before I sharpened and applied neat image.

[Dan Brown]

Hi Lisa, sorry for not being more specific on the APTATS CD. It looks like you are getting mucho help and are on the right track. I also forgot to mention that I had removed the 2 little branches to the right of the bird, the branch near the right edge and extended the end of the branch out to the edge of the right frame using the liquify filter. Dan Brown

[Desmond Chan]

Doug and Alfred,
As requested here is the crop before I sharpened and applied neat image.

Lisa, If you ask me, your original is much better than the processed version. Really. I think you over-processed it. Specifically, I'd guess you over-sharpened it and created too much halo around the bird. The hummingbird in your original looks sharp enough to me. If it were mine, I would do some cropping to tweak the composition a bit.

Welcome aboard, BTW!

[Lance Peters]

original is much better.

[Doug Brown]

Here's a repost of your original. I redid the sharpening, boosted the shadows a little, and took care of the BG bright areas. What do you think?

[Lisa Williams]

Desmond and Lance, Thanks for the comments about the original. I had been afraid that the bird was not sharp enough.

Doug, I like what you did. May I ask which sharpening method you used? And if it was the unsharp mask what were the values?
Or generally which sharpening technique do you use the most?
I have ordered the APTATS CD, am eagerly awaiting it's arrival. Not that it will help with bad photography (which I have a lot of).
I appreciate all the comments and help I received on this one.
Thanks everyone.
Lisa

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great capture Lisa. As previously stated from the others, your original is much better.

[Doug Brown]

Lisa, I used the PixelGenius PhotoKit Sharpener plug-in for PS. It's a wonerful tool that lets you paint sharpness onto an image. Your original image wasn't totally sharp, due in no small part to ISO 1600 on a 20D. And for some reason, the standard sharpening tools in PS didn't work all that well in your photo. PhotoKit Sharpener is very flexible, with brushes for narrow, medium, and wide edges. It has many other tools also.

[Lisa Williams]

Doug,
Sounds like PhotoKit would be a nice addition to the skills set. Will have to wait for next month - joined and got the APTATS CD (on its way) for this month, won't be able to talk the SO into more money for "toys" until next month, already thinks I should not get money for YEARS after buying my MK III.:eek:

[Cheryl Flory]

Doug, I like your sharpening and how you removed the bright area from the BG, but I miss the dark tones in the image. To me the deeper colors, especially in the BG gave the image more depth.