Purple Gallinule

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Sony A-700~Sony70-400G@280mm~ISO 640~1/200sec~F9~Fill Flash with Sony HVL-56AM~manual exposure~overcast~Brazos Bend State Park, Texas~7-7-09
CS4 Topaz Adjust(small detail preset)/ Topaz Clean2
Comments and critique welcomed~Bill

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Bill
This is really neat. Love the textures and high-key feel here. Nice head angle too! Thanks for sharing.

[Kerry Perkins]

Like this a lot William! It has an unearthly, yet familiar look to it. Nice base image and the use of the effects is very tasteful. Nice work!

[Indranil Sircar]

Excellent composition. I love the effect and the subtle colors. High-key makes his more interesting.

[denise ippolito]

Hi Williiam, This is a very nice composition and I love the inclusion of the feet. The leaves look really neat w/ the effect!! There are some artifacts around the bird and the leaves. I love the head on stare and the high-key BG is lovely as noted. Well done!

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Thanks! Denise: yes, I see the "spots". Actually these are not artifacts, but areas of the white background that I missed. For some reason they show up much more clearly after the jpeg conversion. For me this is a persistent problem with high-key images. There are usually a few slightly darker areas in the white background that I need to remove by brushing over them , and since they are actually only slightly different in brightness, often they are hard to see. If I look at the monitor at a severe angle they show right up, but its hard to paint over them in that position. I was wondering if I could just momentarily decrease the brightness of the monitor, then remove them, or is there another way to make them more visible? regards~Bill

[denise ippolito]

William, If you are working on a layer mask just hit the mask square along w/ the Alt key and it will bring your mask up larger in Black and white, so you can see everything. If you are not working on a mask layer just blow the image up 100 % and start in one corner and use the hand tool to move around the image. I do not know how to temporarily decrease the brightness of the monitor, make changes and then set it back-perhaps others will.:)

[Cheryl Slechta]

William, this is a really well-done image. The effects you used make it very striking!:)

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Cheryl