Mallard pair Deschutes River, Oregon

[gareth thomson]

I was shooting snails - best target for my setup - when these ducks appeared. But the darn things refused to fly in front of a decent background. This bg seems hot, but when I try to tone it down in PS, it looks fake. In fact, one friend told me the entire pic looks fake. What think? Thanks in advance for any comments. But if you say it does look fake, the whole rig, camera and lens goes into the Deschutes (of course I'll remove the battery first, so I'm not out of compliance w/ DEQ.) BTW - center of bg was ugly, natch, so cloned in a spot from elsewhere.


Pentax K-5
Pentax 300mm (450mm effective)
f/5.6
Matrix metering
Manual exposure
Auto white balance

[Jonathan Ashton]

Gareth I disagree entirely with your mate I think this is a great shot. It is perhaps just a tad noisy but the focus and the colours and details are superb. The background is Ok for me but as mentioned previously I would reduce the noise. The iridescence in the drake's head is gorgeous.
In summary a little NR on the birds and a bit more again on the background. Nice sharpening by the way.

[Andrew Merwin]

I too would be pleased with this image if it were mine. I like the complimentary poses of the mallards, the drake's dangling feet & the wing positions. It may need some CW rotation.

[Don Nelson]

I agree with the removal of noise from background. In addition, just a bit of gaussian blur will take care of the background. (and I didn't straighten, but you might want to....and also clone stamp a bit over the river edge to reduce the darkness of that edge but not eliminate it)
I don't think you'd want to remove detail from the birds -- the noise isn't noticable there.
Gareth - your masking will be much better with a bigger image from raw than what I've done on your jpeg -- just use this as an example of the results after noise removal and a bit of gaussian blur:

[Arthur Morris]

Incredibly sharp. Shutter speed? Obviously needs to be rotated. Seemingly incredible d-o-f at f/5.6.... Please be so kind as to post the full frame original image.

[jack williamson]

The ducks are fantastic, very sharp. Dons' repost of the BG looks better. Great image.

Jack

[gareth thomson]

Thanks for all the kind comments - and yes Don's repost is way better. I'm hoping he didn't fake that! How on earth did he select just the background and blur it w/out affecting the birds? Artie: How do I post the ff original - aren't posts restricted to the 1024x800 250 kb limits? Maybe the pentax gear will stay dry a while longer...

[gareth thomson]

Sorry - meant to post shutter speed - Exposure Time: 1 / 1250, and yes, it was f/5.6

[dankearl]

Don's repost is very nice, the OP though is very good, just needed a tweak, very sharp and nice positions on both ducks.
Well done.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for all the kind comments - and yes Don's repost is way better. I'm hoping he didn't fake that! How on earth did he select just the background and blur it w/out affecting the birds? Artie: How do I post the ff original - aren't posts restricted to the 1024x800 250 kb limits? Maybe the pentax gear will stay dry a while longer...

Gareth. Assuming a RAW file, simply convert the image and then crop it full frame to 1024 wide. Optimize it to < 245kb and post it :). That is exactly how I prepared the Before Clean-up with Digital Basics image in the animated GIF at the bottom of the blog post here.

[gareth thomson]

Hi Artie - I think this is what you are asking for. I opened the original raw file in ACR, used all the default settings, and in PS reduced it to 1024x678 and then saved it as a jpeg (at 202 kb). That right? You can see that gaping hole in the center that I cloned over. cheers, gt

[Don Nelson]

Thanks for all the kind comments - and yes Don's repost is way better. I'm hoping he didn't fake that! How on earth did he select just the background and blur it w/out affecting the birds? ...

Gareth
Its just a quick mask after selecting the birds. Save the birds in a layer (for on top)
Copy the background and process it for noise. remove the ducks, replace with content aware fill. fix the edges of the fill.
Then gaussian blur (about 5 pixels, but as needed)
layer on top has birds, untouched.
layer below is the new background -- yours with noise removed then gb
takes about 5 minutes tops

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Very special ducks for me, love the PP and the nice light I would not trash your equipment.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the original Gareth. I'd have gone with a bit wider crop after leveling it. You did a decent job with the hole in the BKGR but overall the BKGR is not as bad as you perceive it.

[Arthur Morris]

Gareth
Its just a quick mask after selecting the birds. Save the birds in a layer (for on top)
Copy the background and process it for noise. remove the ducks, replace with content aware fill. fix the edges of the fill.
Then gaussian blur (about 5 pixels, but as needed)
layer on top has birds, untouched.
layer below is the new background -- yours with noise removed then gb
takes about 5 minutes tops

Don, How are you selecting the ducks?

[Satish Ranadive]

Extremely beautiful flight shot of lovely ducks.Love the colors, details and lights.

Regards,
Satish.

[David Salem]

I take a ton of waterfowl shots every year and I can tell you that I would be very happy to have this shot in my portfolio. Both ducks on the same focal plane and the DOF is awesome from wing tip to wing tip. Dons tweaks put this over the top.

It looks fake cause its so good. Keep your stuff!!

David

[Varun Bellie]

Super shot , Colours , sharpness and details and also good job with Processing.

[gareth thomson]

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and the processing tips. I'll pay more attention to getting the image level and to noise - and yes, after Artie's comment, I would now leave more room at the left. (gt)

[Jim Neiger]

Very nice capture. I like the bg a lot except for the dark line of shadow where the water meets vegetation. This is only a minor distraction though. I agree with the other comments made. Here is my cut at it based on the ff post above.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice and sharp, BG looks natural to me. I also wish the shoreline had not intersected with the birds and agree with leveling it. nice work

[Shawn Zierman]

Cool image, excellent to get both ducks on the same focal plane and nice job tracking them too.
Of the reposts, I really like Jim's recent repost the best. I think the original background looks
great...nothing wrong with some background variation, and the tonal shifts are soft enough to
not look bad at all imo.