Pelican Morning

[Kathy Reeves]

This is a compound image. I have looked at it too long to "see" what is wrong. Telephone poles cloned out.
This was taken on the Texas Gulf Coast this past spring --this is one of the areas that was hardest hit by hurricane Ike. I understand it was total devastated.
I took a lot of photos of pelicans flying toward and over me at different distances, in hopes of combining
them into a "flock" of Pelicans. I have been unsuccessful---so I settled for this photo of one with a few behind him.

1/1600, f9.0, ISO 200, FL560 (400mm X 1.4)

[Harold Davis]

kathy, i love your "birdscape"!!! very nice job. the front pelican acts as a nice anchor point and everything else is a bonus!

sure hope this area is able to bounce back quickly. the pics i have seen looked like total devastation.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Kathy, Is this a composite of two images or of more than two? Let me know and I will get back to you.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Kathy,
I like the composite and composition. I took the liberty of making a few adjustments to enhance the image a little. I opened up the blacks on the under wings and neck cloned out the top row of pelicans in the background that were too close for comfort near the main subject, opened up the eye and selective sharpened the under wings and the eye area. cleaned up the shore line, eliminating the black twigs sticking up from the sand...I just did a quick pass, now you need to work on the left wing tip that has a soft halo and the tip of the bill. I also open up the sky and made it a tad lighter...see if you like...:cool:

[Kathy Reeves]

The front pelican is one image and the background is a separate photo. I move some of the small pelicans in the background to the left so the front pelican would not cover them. I am not sure if moving elements counts as a separate image---definitely a separate layer.

I like the lighter version---my images tend to be too dark.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Kathy. The problem here is that the bird int he front is too big, it dominates the image and is sort of unreal. When you bring the front bird into the image, hit Control T and make that bird much smaller. Gus' lighter repost is better but he introduced an ugly clone (?) mark and some ghosting around the bill. I do like the ORIG capture a lot but you can do much better with the composite.

[Gus Hallgren]

How does this size look?

Uncle Gus

[Alfred Forns]

It does have a good feel Kathy !!! I like the shoreline composition a lot !!

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Like Gus's repost the best. Thought the bird was a little too big in the frame. I like the darker image better. Seems to give it a little more atmosphere.

[Kathy Reeves]

Thank you so much ----I am always amazed at what a few small changes can do to improve an image!!!

Kathy

[Arthur Morris]

In the last repost by Gus the close bird is still too big, and there are lots of clone stamp and other marks in the sky. I used QMs, the clone stamp, and the patch tool to prevent such problems. I started with your original post... This repost is more what I had in mind. The sky around the group, however, is still a bit darker than the rest of the sky. If I worked on the TIFF, it would match.

Neatness counts in Photoshop!