Reeve's Pheasant

[Craig Brelsford]

I'm getting some good use out of my copy of Photoshop CS5 Extended. I'm looking at my old shots in a new way and re-editing some of them. Here's a Reeve's pheasant that I photographed in Henan province last June. With content-aware fill, I was able to remove the stick easily. The Reeve's pheasant is endemic to E and C China. IUCN classifies it as vulnerable; only about 2,000 remain in the wild.

Device: Nikon D300
Lens: VR 600mm F/4G
Focal Length: 600 mm
Focal Length in 35mm Film: 900.0 mm
VR: ON
Aperture: f/4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 200
Exposure Comp.: -0.33
Exposure Mode: Auto
Metering Mode: Center Weight
Subject Distance: 28.2 m
Photoshoppery: See earlier version below. 'Nuff said.

[Craig Brelsford]

I lived with this edit for six months because with my earlier version of Photoshop removing the stick would have been difficult and the result may not have been satisfactory.

[Craig Brelsford]

Sorry, the bird is a Reeves's pheasant, not a Reeve's.

[Gary Hamilton]

Beautiful bird--a pity it is so scarce. Excellent PS work with the content-aware feature. It pays to hang on to those "iffy" images--you never know what technology will come along. There are a couple of OOF foliage areas on the sides of the bird but it looks like you had to capture this thru a narrow opening. Image could have use in conservation of this species.

[Stu Bowie]

Craig, great job on removing the stick - I wouldnt even have taken the shot:) Good look back pose, and plenty of colours to look at. Did you capture this vertically?

[Pieter de Waal]

Beautiful bird Craig and great PS work. Like the head turn and eye contact. Thanks for the info, nice to learn about new species even if the news is not encouraging.

[Craig Brelsford]

Did you capture this vertically?

Stu: This shot was originally horizontal. See my specs above: I was 28.2 m away from him. I should've mentioned that the shot was cropped.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Craig, beautiful bird with quite the nice plumage - love the scaling effect. You got it in the most ideal pose to showcase this. Excellent job on the stick removal, nothing is noticeable. I find the image quite blue, so I loaded it in PS, lowered the saturation in the blue channel only, and reduced the cyan in "Selective Color". Although I wasn't there to see the actual colours, the reduced blues seem more "correct" to my eye. Hope you don't mind the slight tweak:S3:

P.S. I'd also find the comp a bit stronger with the subject lower in the frame, or more room top and left.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

What a beauty !!! excellent work on the PP.