It's all about the perch

So this one really frustrates me. Love the bird, hate the perch and BG so I'm open to suggestions. I tried to position myself as best as possible but the branch was in the middle of the tree. I tried a number of things with cloning, masking, etc, and I think the perch is just too messy, OOF, etc to save this one. Here are two tries, with one I just totally cut out the bird and perch and put on a background and the other without any work on the BG other than NR. I think the solution is go back to the same tree, do some trimming (although the park folks might not like that much! :)) and try again! The birds actually seemed to be posing for me, just not in the right spot!!

Canon 7D Mark II, Tamron 150-600mm, 1/250, f/13, ISO 800, HH, AF.

Full shot:

Attachment 162695

Worked to death!

Attachment 162696

Love the bird and the pose, with great detail on the head. You did a great job masking! Finding a BG with a little hint of detail would make it more realistic.

I actually like some of the branches. With your final version, you might consider also removing the one that goes out the bottom of the frame. The horizontal one gets strange near both ends -- I didn't mind the OOF look there in the original -- is it just that the context has now changed or did you try to sharpen it or something?

I'd try this in order:
remove the white lichen at the left edge of the main branch
remove the OOF vertical brnch to the right
remove the donut shape where the curved one in the LR ends in front of the perch and maybe prune it back short of the main branch
remove the one that goes out the bottom
maybe make the green at the top tan so it doesn't call attention up there?
then see about reducing contrast a lot on the remaining branches near the top, or maybe remove and replace with the tan color??

Hi Warren, I cannot say it enough but this is a very nice image: Soft light, tonality is handled really well. Sure that you could use a little more head turn but heh, not everything has to go by the book. I hope you don't mind my taking the liberty of doing some clean-up on this beautiful image to show you the great potential you have here. I usually try to make suggestions and let the artist's imagination to carry it to where he/she wants to go but, it is kinda hard to show you without actually showing you; if you know what I mean.

In my opinion, the blue BG doesn't do the picture any justice. It just doesn't go together with the soft light on the bird. The OOF branch also creates a lot of problem to cut off from the original image.

I reach the image below in 10 minutes while sipping my morning coffee thanks to your excellent capture of the entire bird in focus. From my experience, the subject-BG separation is key to the success of this work. When I do the clean-up, I did the followings. Mind you I used Affinity Photo, I'll do my best to give you the tools' name in Photoshop.

1. First, select the BG you want to clean up. I did this using the quick selection tool on the bird and use the 'refine edges' option to further clean up the fine feather detail selection on the boundary between the bird and BG and click Apply. After that, just invert selection so that it is the BG that is now selected.

Attachment 162700

2. I always start with the Clone tool. Full opacity, 30% hardness. The goal here is to erase the branches so don't worry about the hard boundary between the green and the light brown. We will deal with it next. Here you can see my cloning work on the left side of the frame.

Attachment 162701

After cloning the right side, this is what I got:
Attachment 162702

3. Next, to smoothen out the BG, I use the healing brush with very soft brush (0% hardness) and start smoothing it . There is no right or wrong way to do it; you just have to experiment. Here is the intermediate result I got after healing the left side of the frame.

Attachment 162703

You keep doing it until you get to where you want to be; for me this is what I got after 10 minutes. Again, great shot, Warren. This clean up won't happen as easily if you didn't nail that shot in camera! I hope this serves as a motivation to give it a try yourself!

Attachment 162699

Very nice, and a great way to show the steps. I hadn't though to clone out the branches with a semi-hard brush and then soften later - good idea!

I still like the curve of the branch in the LR leading back to the bird, and possibly its inclusion makes the OOF ends of the main branch less obtrusive.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions! Adhika, we think a lot alike. Here was what I worked on right after I posted the original, and used about the exact same steps you outlined! BTW, great job! I went with a vertical crop, adding some canvas above and below. I may try to put that one OOF branch in the LR back in to see if that adds anything. Thoughts?

Attachment 162706

Nice! The vertical works well. I did a Curves and pulled up the middle to brighten a bit. Alternative is to do it on a soft-edged mask just on the bird.

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Originally Posted by Diane Miller

Nice! The vertical works well. I did a Curves and pulled up the middle to brighten a bit. Alternative is to do it on a soft-edged mask just on the bird.

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Great! Thanks all for helping me make some lemonade! I cleaned up some of the feathers on the crest (some gray branch was showing through!) and did a soft mask as Diane suggested and using curves brightened the bird a little.

Attachment 162710

I am digging this last one, Warren. Very artfully done. I think we have a winner.


One thing that I am not sure about is the red spot on the bird by the yellow feather. What is that, Warren? Clearly I am not familiar with this bird.

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Originally Posted by Adhika Lie

I am digging this last one, Warren. Very artfully done. I think we have a winner.


One thing that I am not sure about is the red spot on the bird by the yellow feather. What is that, Warren? Clearly I am not familiar with this bird.

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You really need to be my straight man as you just give me great lead in's! I was just working on another shot that would have been super if he had just turned his head a little more towards me, but it is great for showing all of the beautiful details of this bird. Here is how Cornell University describes them:

• Color Pattern
  
  Cedar Waxwings are pale brown on the head and chest fading to soft gray on the wings. The belly is pale yellow, and the tail is gray with a bright yellow tip. The face has a narrow black mask neatly outlined in white. The red waxy tips to the wing feathers are not always easy to see.
  
  But they show up great here:
  
  Attachment 162719

I guess in the first shot the feathers from the belly were blowing over the wings, I hadn't noticed that before!

Great shots Warren.

I really like the detail in Cedar Waxwings. They are a really cool birds to photograph.

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Originally Posted by Krishna Prasad kotti

Great shots Warren.

I really like the detail in Cedar Waxwings. They are a really cool birds to photograph.

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I don't think I can get enough of them, and so overlooked by most people even though they can be very abundant!

Wow. A lot of effort. This beautiful bird is worth it. Thank you.

Thanks Jim!

Warren,thanks so much for sharing this and the groups ideas that followed. Fascinating reading for me Adihka thank you for the details. I know I can't apply any of this yet ,but it's sure been a good read,illuminating.

Warren what can I say we have a waxwing here something i've always wanted to see and photograph,I share your passion for this bird. All credit for your actual take of the bird it's self so well taken. What you guys have achieved from that base capture has been so interesting to read through.

take care

Stu

Thanks Stu!