Cormorant Moon

[Judy Howle]

This is a composite image. :D I added a texture and played around with adjustments and blend modes.

[denise ippolito]

Judy, I really like your creative thinking on this one. The moon and sky colors look very nice. I like the birds and the way they are flying. If it were mine I might lose the last two birds and push the moon over to the right a bit so it's not so centered. BUT that is just my opinion and others may feel differently. Nice work on the composite and I think you really nailed the glow of the moon and the sky.

[Indranil Sircar]

Beautiful composite, Judy. Love your vision and how you have all the elements together. Agree with Denise on the glow... it has come out very well.

[Steve Adkins]

Beautiful glow and blend of your images, Judy. Very nice indeed!

[Hilary Hann]

Beautifully executed Judy. If your birds and the moon are different layers I would also try a couple of different compositions as suggested by Denise. It may or may not work but this is lovely as it is anyway.

[Kerry Perkins]

Judy, I like this a lot and would also like to see a bit different placement for the moon. If you had the canvas and the different layers that Hilary mentions you could move the moon a bit left and hte birds together toward the ULC of the frame. This is a great use of a silhouette and I love your moon glow and sky. Well done!

[Judy Howle]

Thanks everyone. Good suggestions but either I never kept the layered file with the birds separate or I just can't locate it. I printed the original without a texture for a photographers show 3 yrs ago 10 x 7 framed to 14 x 11. So what I have done is remove the last bird. It didn't work with removing 2 birds, it lost the diagonal line and looked truncated. If I'd had it separate I would also have used content aware scale on the background to squeeze it in so the sparse clouds weren't lost in the crop.

[Indranil Sircar]

Excellent repost.

[Judy Howle]

Thanks Indrinil!

[Kerry Perkins]

I agree, nicely done on the repost. I think this makes for a stronger composition. Lovely image.

[denise ippolito]

Judy, I think the repost looks very good. I hope you get a chance to do more of these, they are fantastic. I imagine with your cloud and sky collection you can put together some beauties!:)

[Hilary Hann]

Love the repost. Would also love to have your sky collection! :)

[Christopher Miller]

Very nice composite, Judy! Looks perfectly natural. I love the mood and subtle texture, and the repost looks great.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Judy, the repost (and the original) both look great. I love the subtle texture and the light from the moon.:)

[Judy Howle]

Thanks so much Denise! And everyone who makes suggestions and comments on the images. i have really learned a lot in the short time I've been participating. And been made more aware of things I already knew but wasn't practicing at times :o Not to mention learning new techniques and just getting back into photo enhancement which I used to enjoy before I got an SLR. I was one of the 4 founders and a moderator of Digital Nuts yahoo group, the first group anywhere that I know of for artistically enhancing images. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalnuts/ I'm still a member but i haven't been active in 6 yrs. BTW I don't know where to post links so I hope it's OK to do it here and this is a link to a good tutorial that I used on some images when I participated, it's a pen-and-ink watercolor effect: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/new_page_9.shtml

[Judy Howle]

Thanks Hilary! Up until this summer when I started shooting sunsets I had very few sky images except ones that had birds in them! 80% of my photography was birds until a couple of years ago and especially after I got the 5D 2 last November.

[Judy Howle]

Thanks Christopher!