Way Out of the Box For Me...

[Arthur Morris]

I started messing around in the field by focusing on the little plant and blurring the head of the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron. I took the eye from a sharp image with a QM and then used a second QM to do a Gaussian Blur on the plant. I rather like it.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

ps: I could do without the white smudge just to the right of the plant...

[Cindy Crawford]

Hi Artie

This is quite striking! Neat idea to take a focused area from another photo. Um...what's QM?

I think I'd like to see a more focused beak if I were to nit-pick. :)

[Arthur Morris]

QM = Quick Mask. You can learn Robert O'Toole's advanced QMing techniques in APTATS available only through BIRDS AS ART.

[Alfred Forns]

This is way Cool Arite Great vision to come up with it Never know what you will be coming up with !!!!

[Julie Kenward]

Wow...now that's unique! I agree that I'd like the beak a bit more pronounced but having it all blurry and then seeing that eye...Alfred Hitchcock would be proud of you!

[Dan Brown]

Very creative Artie! My first impression upon looking at the image was that the eye was pasted on top and sort of floating. I think the sharp edges to the eye are creating this, so in my repost, I used the smudge tool in CS3 to softed this edge and, for me at least, this puts the eye inside the head and not pasted on top.

Happy New Year and Thank You very much for BPN!!!!

[denise ippolito]

Dan, That's exactly what it needed ! Great re-post and makes the eye so believable!
Artie, You had a good soft blur -hard to do .I think you did it well!!

[Richard Waas]

I love Dan's repost!!! Great idea Artie......

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Like Dan's repost and it is nice to see you in OOTB Artie!

[Arthur Morris]

Way to go Dan. I love what you did. Can you explain in detail how you used the smudge tool?

[Dan Brown]

Your welcome Artie. I used the zoom tool, enlarging the eye area, then selected the smudge tool at about 8 pixels, strength of 30% and a hardness of 0%. With the tool set, I went around the edge of the eye and "pushed" the edge a little toward the inner eye.

[Arthur Morris]

Thank you sir. That is one tool that I have never used. Will go back and try it.