Solitude

[Julie Kenward]

There were some canada geese on the lake yesterday and I got this one off by himself for awhile. I converted this to a black & white image first but felt it lacked something. I went in and applied a quadtone to it with a light blue, dark blue and medium purple tones to go with the black. I had to lighten the top of the frame a bit as the blues really took it too dark but with a quick levels adjustment I was back in business.

[Chris Starbuck]

Jules,
I like your comp, and what you've done with the toning; good title too. I wonder if you could get some tonal separation between the goose and its reflection, at least right along the waterline? As is, they merge into a rather odd shape.

[denise ippolito]

Julie, I like the blue and purple tones -I can't help but think pano when I look at this- but I wouldn't want to lose the color streaks-they are very nice. You do seem to work magic with water reflection shots!

[Julie Kenward]

Chris, my bad! I erased his head in the reflection because it was really funky looking but didn't erase the rest of his body. You're right...I need to do that. As is, he's one VERY fluffy goose!

[Chris Starbuck]

Jules,
Denise's pano suggestion is interesting. Do you have CS4 yet? Try the Content-Aware Scaling to shrink the height - it preserves all the reflection detail with minimal distortion of the goose.

[Julie Kenward]

But wouldn't that end up putting the bird in the blue part of the water? I like that he's out in the white area...it's that part of the image that I feel gives the depth and coldness of the solitude.

[Julie Kenward]

Okay, not sure I did this right but here's a first attempt at content-aware scaling. I need to figure out how to keep the goose from being in the bottom of the frame!

[Chris Starbuck]

Jules,
Here are a couple tweaks to the CAS. Upper one was done in 2 stages. First selected the whole image and shrank the height a little. Then selected just the area above the goose and shrank it some more. The lower one I just did the 2nd step, which kept the goose at the original distance from the bottom. Just a couple ideas to play with.

[Julie Kenward]

Chris, how do you select an area? I read a tutorial on the Adobe help page but it wasn't a lot of help...

[Alfred Forns]

I like the goose further down but not right at the edge The pano does looks well Good changes Chris !!!

Jules do you use LR? I like the tinting control !!

[Chris Starbuck]

Chris, how do you select an area? I read a tutorial on the Adobe help page but it wasn't a lot of help...

For my previous post, where I wanted to select a rectangular area, I used the marquee selection tool. Then the CAS operates on the selection and leaves the unselected portion of the image unmodified.

Here's yet another possibility, just exploring what CAS can do. This time I selected the goose using the quick selection tool, and saved that selection as "goose". Deselected that (CTRL-D). Then used the marquee tool to select all but a narrow slice along the bottom; the selection included the goose this time; I excluded the slice at the bottom to preserve some distance between the goose and the bottom edge of the frame. Now, after choosing Edit > CAS, I picked "goose" from the "Protect" drop-down list on the tool option bar. Then shrank the height of the selected rectangle. The goose is left unmolested, and the unselected area near the bottom limits how close to the bottom the goose will move.

[Michael Pancier]

I prefer the original crop. the toning is very different and works well with the water vibes

[Julie Kenward]

Yeah, I like both crops but think I like the blues in the top post better, also. Al, I do not have LR but you can feel free to tell Santa I want it for Christmas!!!