Woodpeckers at coffee break

I've been too busy lately and remiss in keeping up in Avian, but I had a lot of fun putting this image together and thought I'd toss it out. It may not be appropriate here, but I'd hate to slap a so-called "painting" filter on it just so I could put it in OOTB. I got tired of shooting these guys at the perches where they approach the feeders and decided to see if I could get some "action" shots, as they are often rather comical. Filled the cup with bread crumbs and aimed the camera and waited. Before long I had interesting shots of one on each side, and combined them in PS. The steam is smoke from our woodstove chimney, shot several winters ago.

I noticed they would grab a piece of bread and almost immediately take off so I shot in burst mode and got lucky with this one.

Canon 5D3, ISO 1250, f/11, 1/640; 300mm f/2.8, Wimberley II.

The title is "YIKES! That's HOT!"

I got a fun one of two titmice, also, that I'll share later if I'm not banished for having too much fun. :S3:

What a wonderful composite! Great fun. Alt. title: "It tastes better when you dunk it." I suppose it does belong in OOTB, but I'm glad you shared it here. The addition of the "steam" is brilliant, and I love the feet hooked over the rim. Well done.

This is very cool, Diane. It's funny you used this term.
I used it all the time when they stop feeding.
I would say they are on a coffee break.
Of course I would use it figuratively but in your case, they literally have a coffee break, or it seems to have been the case.

Diane it's just great, certainly put a smile on my face.

Cheers Keith.

Everything about the image is brilliant, Diane. Top rung IQ, and off the charts detail and both intense determination with task at hand.




Geoffrey

Excellent processing! I've no idea how you managed to merge that steam perfectly! Love the action you captured! Looking forward to see your titmice shot.

This is GREAT, Diane! ( "Dunkin Donuts" should buy this image for their website... just kidding!) Left Bird: "Darn, I dropped mine in the coffee" ...Right Bird: "Here, let me show you how it's done!" Beautifully composed, balanced and exposed. Totally fun and a real eye-catcher! :bg3:

Its a cool work! I think it belongs to OOTB as you have combined different elements from different photos in Photoshop to create this image.


TFS creative work!

Very creative and very refreshing shot! Love the pose and expressions of both birds. Sharp shot with nice background too. TFS

Super creative Diane! Keep them coming! Great fun...

Thanks, everyone! You gotta have fun sometimes.

Wasn't sure it would fit in OOTB because the only "effect" is realistic compositing. It could work with some of the more subtle Fractalius effects I see there but as a Mac user I can't run it.

This is so amazing, Diane, and thank you for posting it here. You are so creative, and this image needs to be published somewhere!!!

that composition really fits the Acorn Woodpecker! My wife calls them "clown" birds. Nice to see something different and very creative.

Thanks, everyone! They are clowns, indeed. I put up a nicer water dish today and the woodpeckers are amusingly suspicious of it, chasing away those of the tribe who venture too close.

I'll put up the titmice and then go back to straight stuff. (Well, I was expecting to get scrub jays when I set this up -- haven't yet, but if I do...)

Superb composition. Love the bird on the right gazing into the mug. I am also wondering how to planted the smoke so nicely :)

TFS

Thanks, everyone!

The smoke was easy. It was sunlit white against a blue sky. I desaturated it and adjusted the contrast (with Curves) until the sky looked about 50% gray, and the smoke was nicely white with detail. Then I brought it in as a layer and changed its mode to Overlay. Instant magic -- the gray parts disappeared! Then I just needed to size and position it. By leaving the edges hard I could easily see if the gray BG was completely disappearing with Overlay. It was a little too dark, so I made another Curves and clipped it to the smoke layer, so only that layer was affected it, and adjusted to get the best edge disappearance. Of course there was some slight gradient in the sky, so I couldn't make it all disappear. I did a couple more Curves masked to the darker and lighter areas (see the Quick Mask tutorial it the ETL stickies), then masked the whole thing with a very soft brush back to just the smoke with some of the gray BG left. Clicking the smoke layer on and off showed no contamination from the remaining gray sky.

Thanks for explaining. Need to try some of these cool compositions ;)

What a crack up. Very well done. Very nice exposure and details. How about "It's tea time" with the crumpets. Very fun frame, TFS

Excellent image. Wonderful creation.

Regards,
Satish.