Conowingo Eagles - Adullt & Juvie
Canon 7D; 400mm F/5.6L USM
F/7.1, 1/1600, ISO 400
LR4: reduce highlights, heavy crop, noise reduction
I know the heavy crop has reduced the details, but my real question is.... the waves on the water distract from the action. What's the best way to reduce that distraction?
TIA,
...Jerry
Last edited by Peter Kes; 10-20-2012 at 05:28 AM.
I agree with you about the loss of detail. The waves are a bit distracting. I would crop some off the top and add some canvas to the right if possible. You can select the BG and try running a Gaussian Blur or reducing contrast on the BG, that will soften it some. Nice moment you captured here.
Thanks, Joel. Here's the repost with your suggestions. My next question - does this appear obviously Photoshopped?
...Jerry
Last edited by Jerry amEnde; 10-21-2012 at 03:41 PM.
Jerry, you just don't have enough pixels on the birds. Whatever else you do is of little consequence. I do like the story that your image tells - the adult attempting to steal the fish from the juvi. However, blurring the background does not make up for the loss of detail caused by the large crop and it appears that you blurred the enitire image. Also, the exposure is one full stop over what I would use for a bird with white plumage. I can't say it enough - you simply cannot expose properly in harsh, mixed light! Your only choices are to blow out the whites or clip the blacks.
"It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart, and head." - Henri Cartier Bresson
Please visit me on the web at http://kerryperkinsphotography.com
You might try to reduce the distracting water in LR 4 with the adjustment brush using the clarity slider. Sometimes just a bit of a reduction in clarity can reduce distracting background elements. Nice capture.
Jerry, a solid action capture and story shot. As noted-The BG is a little distracting. A slightly different approach would be using aplugin, such as Topaz Adjust to smooth it out. V5 uses brush tools very much like LR4-or you could always layer mask the birds and use it that way. Anyhow, there's a slider that gradually removes detail, giving an overall smoothing effect to the area selected. When used in conjunction some of the other controls, you can create a very pleasing effect. Because this is cropped so heavily (not sure how much) but still relatively sharp with nice color, I'd back off a bit on the tight framing and explore Out of the box options.
Hi Jerry.....You have a few options ...most already mentioned.....I would try the gaussian blur again but this time just use a smaller amount . You can also adjust the opacity of that layer. be sure to mask out those eagles. There is also a plug in called Nik-Viveza that uses control points. You simply place the control point on the bg water tone and adjust the structure ( texture ) slider .....no need for masking...only the water tone will be affected. This would be my first choice!
Thanks to all for the suggestions. Since the recent suggestions recommend plugins that I do not currently have, it may be a bit before I can test them out.
...Jerry
Jerry-not sure if you are aware-Both NIK and Topaz offer fully functional trial versions. NIK is 15 days, can't recall what Topaz is-might be 30.
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