Challange

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Folks

Captured this Male Gila Woodpecker yesterday, and thought maybe you folks could suggest what to do with this photo? "Kamasaki" with steeper angle of dive, "Hasty retreat"?

All ideas and redo;s invited and appreciated.

Uncle Gus

Olympus E-620, Zuiko 70-300 @ 360 mm equiv
Aperture Priority: F/5.6, 1/2500s, ISO 400, 0.00eV, auto WB

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Gus, I like habitat image and neat looking environment with bird in LRHC. It would take a lot of work IMO (note multiple-branch intersections with birds body) but those better with PS might disagree. I might just enjoy this one and hit it again tomorrow.

[Desmond Chan]

thought maybe you folks could suggest what to do with this photo?

Keep it !

Simple. :)

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Folks

Gina was watching "24" and I don't care for it so I went on my computer and played with the challenge. 68 minutes later I ended up with this. Any finishing touches you would like, please let me know, Basically what I did was to make a background the same size as the challenge, Colour picked 2 shades of blue for FG & Bg, then Filter>Render>clouds. Then I pressed V (Move) Then I moved the challenge over the BG holding bdown shift (for a perfect fit) Then brought out Eraser & Background eraer to clean out what I didn't want. When cleaned up I clicked Image>curves and using dark & light eye droppers set the blacks & whites. Finished up with Curves default Linear Contrast

CC/s warmly invited

Uncle Gus

[Dave Mills]

Hi Gus, Interesting habitat image with the subject flying in an uncommonly viewed angle. When you shoot a subject in a densely branched area there will normally be branches that you would prefer not to be seen but nearly impossible to exclude. The maze of branches and additional bird has a tendency to take away from your center of interest where you want your eye to rest.
It would take alot of work to rid many of the intersecting branches but I would keep it due to the interesting subject and angle of flight....


I see you were busy while I was writing my comments. Good job on the cleanup greatly improving the image. I might cleanup a few other small areas around the upper wing,feet and beak.

[Craig Wallace]

Hi Gus, nice job on cleaning up the background, I agree with Mr Mills comments. Very nice and different action capture.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Gus - nice PP work on the clean up - a little more to do though to clean it up completely - did well to lock the focus on this guy amongst all that timber.
Do like the repost.

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Guys

You sure have eagle eyes, I had to 300% to spot those marks and having saved it in PSD I was able to erase them?

Best regards

Uncle Gus
BTW: Dave glad to have you aboard, Lance & Al have been here since day 1 with Judd being replaced with Gus, and now you. All a great poker hand

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Folks

Just wanted to show you something interesting.

I opened "Windows Live Photo Gallery" Opened up my redo, clicked Fix. a side window of editing tools opened and under Black & white there were six windows showing six different examples including Sepia. I click the window I thought I liked and this result.

Worth a look.

Uncle Gus

[Dave Mills]

Hi Gus, Thanks for the kind words...Good job on the final cleanup...

[Alfred Forns]

Oh My God ... what a change !!! You did some heavy duty good work Gus !!!

... could lighten the head area just slightly.. came up with a good one !!!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Nice repost, well done Gus.

[Bill Dix]

Great PS work, Gus. I would have attacked it one branch at a time, or given up. Repost is great. Sepia interesting but not as good as first repost IMHO. Good catch.

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Folks

Thanks for all the kind words.

Al, I took your good advice and corrected head area?

Best regards

Uncle Gus

BTW: Got new Gamble Quail & a Common Raven this morning. Still no Hummers

[Harold Davis]

UG!!! awesome job with the last repost!! all i can say is you did one heck of a job locking focus on this speedy guy with all that junk in the bg!! very nice job with that and the Ps work is just fantastic. i like that you left the tree on the right. gives it a jumping off point!!