Anhinga I

[Jim Miller]

Anhinga at Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park. Canon 1VS with 100-400 and 1.4x. I had the film scanned, then cropped and adjusted levels, and lightened up the out of focus plants behind the head slightly. This is my first post.

Thanks. Jim

[c.w. moynihan]

Lovely closeup composition. I think it would be even better if you cloned out the faint oof branches that pull the eye away from the preening bird.

[Jim Poor]

Beautiful plumage you have here!

I played with it a little, what do you think?

I used Select > color range to select the highlights. Duplicated them onto a new layer and changed the mode to multiply. Reduced the opacity to 50% and changed the layer to a mask. I erased the darkening from the head and then duplicated the multiply layer one more time. This time I left the darkening in the head area. It is less pronounced than in the other bright white spots.

Deselect.

Then I used Shadow Highlight with shadows on 5% 20 for tonal value and 0 for radius, highlights 14 %, tonal value 15 and radius zero.

Then I selected the BG with Select, Color Range. I had to use the lasso to de-select parts of the bird, but not many, and then ran the Filter> Noise> Reduce noise with settings: Strength 10, Preserve Details 43, Reduce color noise 71, Sharpen Details 0. I repeated this filter (CMD F / CNTRL F) 7 times.

Inverted the selection, contracted it by 3 pixels and used smart sharpen of 50 % .1 pixels.



I've never seen this species, so I can't say if the colors are accurate.

[Jim Poor]

I'm not sure if it's just my eyes, but it looks like I might have left a bit of pinkish halo on the left...

[Jim Neiger]

Nice pose and composition here, Jim. I like the begining breeding plumage on the anhinga as well. Looks like the light was a bit harsh and the whites a bit overexposed.

[Jim Miller]

Thank you for your comments, and Jim, I'm honored that you would find the image worth spending some time on. The comments raise some questions for me that I suspect most folks resolved a long time ago. I am probably too conservative about this, but I try not to introduce or remove elements, as the "flaws" sometimes lend realism that keep the photo from looking overdone. I guess it is a slippery slope that I am afraid of falling down. Your edits greatly improve the quality of the image, especially compared to my own meager PS abilities. I look forward to working through your steps from the original. Lots to think and learn about. Thank you very much. Jim

[Robert Amoruso]

Hi Jim,

The whites are always difficult on these birds in harsh light due to the extreme tonal range of the black plumage to white plumage. Soft light is more flattering for them. Given this light, I prefer to see the detail in the black and will push the whites to just blowing out and then bring them down in Photoshop. You don't get any/little detail in the whites however. Its a tough situation.

I like the pose and you had a pretty good head angle and can see the eye. Perfect head angle would be the eye/beak parallel to the camera.

[Jim Poor]

You're quite welcome, but don't be honored until one of the big guns come around. I'm still at the bottom of the learning curve :D


As for the question of adding and removing in Photoshop, there is absolutely nothing wrong with your conservative view. In fact, the work I did on the image would immediately disqualify it for many uses. I had an interesting exchange on this with a National Geographic photographer not long ago.

Personally, as long as the modifications are not done so as to deceive, then I have no problem with it.

[Jim Miller]

Thanks, Robert. I found the white/black "balance" very frustrating. I should try again, now that I understand Curves a little better. Thanks. Jim