Eagle with catch

They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. Being very impressed with the birds from William Moraldo, I thought I would give a the technique a try. The original eagle in this shot was moved to a new layer and a touch of Topaz adjust details was added. I dropped a gradient behind him with sorta naturelike tones. Like I said above, this was attempted out of respect and inspiration from Williams work. All thoughts are greatly appreciated as always.

Dave, I like this! Very colorful gradient and the Eagle stands out well. I'm thinking maybe soften the lines in the gradient up top(maybe w/ a slight gaussian blur) but that is subjective depending on the effect you are after. I like the eagle's pose and catch! Nice eye contact. I see just a bit of blue around the edges. Very nice capture and creative BG applied. Well done.

I love the BG, Dave. When you make the selection, before you feather it, go to Select>Modify>Contract and do it by one or two pixels to tighten the selection and avoid the sky to bleed. I may repair the one feather in upper right.

Thanks Denise and Fabs. I agree the backround could be softened up a bit. I revisited the original file and there is a bit of blue edge on that wing (strange?) A bit of CA maybe?. Fabs, I agree that he needs a bit of surgery on that tip feather. More work to do.......

Dave, I think you did a great job w/ this.The eagle has a nice pose and great eye contact.I agree the background could be smoothed out a little. Great looking final image!

Dave, the thumbnail did have something familiar about it! I don't know if you take any high-key images, but the technique works best with overexposed images taken in soft light. The technique doesn't work too well with shadows, and requires good detail in the original image. Good thing its not CA in your image, but a little refinement needed in selection. One more thing, in case you hadn't noticed, areas of images that are not well focused or have soft edges create alot of noise. I usually use a history brush to revert theses areas back to their original state. Lets see what else you can come with...good start. regards~Bill

Very nicely done! I love the shot of the eagle and catch as well as the beautiful blending of colors in the background. The realistic side of me wants the green (trees in my brain) to be below the orange (sky in my brain). But, that's because I still have one leg in that box.

Thanks for your thoughts Patti. They are very much appreciated. Still more to be done here.