Nikon D7000, w/Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR lens @ 400mm, hand held in a skiff
ISO 1600; f/8.0, 1/400 sec; Matrix metering +2.33
PP: PS CS6: NR, levels, curves, sharpen
This image of a Hoatzin was captured near the Amazon River in Peru. My usual post-processing involves cropping to best set off my subject. But I've found cropping this image difficult, and I'd like your advice. Therefore I'm showing the entire frame as it was captured by my camera.
I find the trunks and branches of the tree to be interesting, because of their color and bark patterns. Some of them might be used to frame the bird. But those in the plane of the bird are in sharp focus, while those more in the foreground are not. Which branches and trunks should I keep in cropping this image?
The leaves in the foreground are definitely soft. Still, it might be argued that if some of them are kept, they would help to draw our eyes to that beautiful bird. But if it would be a good idea to keep some of the leaves, which ones? Do the lower, partial leaves add any value, or should they be eliminated by cropping? If they are eliminated, should the residual side shoots be removed by cloning?
And what about that little vertical spike to the left of the leaves. Should it be cloned away?
Your suggestions will be most welcome.
Norm
Last edited by Norm Dulak; 09-09-2012 at 04:39 PM.
Nice capture Norm. I am no expert but I think I would take some off of the top and some off of the right side to put the bird more in the upper right intersection in the rule of thirds grid.
Hi Norm- First, very envious that you have seen one of these!
A crop for this image is very difficult. I played around a little in Ps and ended up with a version like Ian's but showing all of the FG leaves. Not really happy with it and Ian may have it anyway. Interested to see what others say.
David's thoughts make very good sense, and Ian has taken a good shot at the problem, and has taken the time to make a repost showing his idea. Many thanks for that. And John, I'm glad that I'm not the only one who finds a good crop for this image difficult.
I've posted here another possible approach, in which I've also cloned out some branches to clean up the image a bit.
Deciding how to best crop this one is really tough. Part of the decision is what to keep. Normally, I avoid foreground elements that aren't in focus, but these leaves couldn't go. Their color is good for the rest of the image, and they help to form a triangle with the bird at the top.
I usually rely heavily on divine proportions when cropping. That played a part, here, but a very small one. Mostly, I just played around until I thought it looked pretty good. Then, I made minor adjustments based on divine proportions.
For the most part, I live in the Out of the Box forum and don't hesitate to take liberties with an image. That made it easy for me to rationalize flipping it horizontally. That seemed better because, if one reads the image from left to right, those nearly vertical branches worked to keep the viewer's eyes in the image (when they're on the right) instead of halting the movement of the eyes (even if only momentarily) like they do when on the left. In addition, those horizontal branches lead the eyes in instead of out when they're on the left side.
Norm, what a beautiful bird and capture! Nicely exposed against that high key bg too. I realize this crop is unrealistic given the distance to subject in the original, but I feel it shows the strength of the central elements. I often find these exercises useful in identifying the elements that draw me to a scene in the first place.
Crop Suggestions Needed
