-
-
Nice catch, with both sharp! I think you could add canvas and just trim that wingtip very carefully with a tiny clone brush to round it out -- it looks long enough that I don't think it will look cut off. One way to find out!
Is there a little more detail to be pulled out of the darks?
I've never tried to print that small but I wouldn't expect to see the problem you describe. Sounds like posterization. Is the master file 16 bits? It's best to always keep all that tonal overhead. If you are converting to 8-bit for printing (although with the printers and software I know, you shouldn't have to), be sure you flatten BEFORE you convert. Then resize and inspect the file in PS -- it should print just as it looks. If you are letting the printer do the sizing, it could be handling things badly.
Or an Export from LR, to the desired print size, will handle all the issues correctly.
What is the printer?
-
Lifetime Member
Svante,
Greetings. A shame about the wing tip... Depending on your PS skills you could extend the canvas and as Diane suggests clone in a tip (one way would be to use a pixel or so sized brush using the clone for pixel color and just paint in a tip) or use another image if you have one of a workable tip and clone/paint that one.
If this were mine, the action would be worth the effort, but first I would re-convert this from RAW, pull down the highlights and pull up the darks. You don't mention the ISO but judging from the set up and the camera there should be plenty of DR to bring in detail in the black feathers. Once the full DR is contained in the 16 bit tiff tonal adjustments can be made from there. I think more detail can be pulled in the whites, darks and the red flower as well.
Finally, are you sure you are seeing posterization and not the bg pattern shrunk to a small size?
Anyway, a great action capture (short the clipped wing tip) worth the processing effort. Thanks for posting.
Cheers,
-Michael-
-
nice composition and DOF and with two birds I barely noticed the clipped wing....but it is there. If you can fix it, repost, would love to see it.
-
Took me a long time to get round to adding the canvas (had a lot of problems with Photoshop CC which started asking for a serial number and it took me a long while to realise that the problem actually was in the Creative Cloud program - a corrupt file which needed to be deleted). Anyway here it is with a bit of canvas added, adding a bit of wingtip and then content aware fill on the blank canvas (i.e. with the exception of the wingtip). The Content Aware fill does an amazing job (I think) but it of course extends the wingtip out to the border which meant that I had to do a bit of manual cloning over that area (much more difficult to get OK than I would have expected and still could do with a bit of improvement). Finally I added just a touch of highlights and shadow stuff (for the black stuff I don't think it added much value).
Let me know what you think!?!
-
Svante,
When viewing the page in normal style the wingtip and added canvas did not show. When I switched to mobile style I was actually able to see the complete image for some reason. Must be because the monitor I am on is not a widescreen one maybe? You did a good job on adding the canvass and creating the wing tip. Looks natural to me. I have got to try using the content aware tool when adding canvass instead of cloning the area. The birds do look lighter to me and I can see more detail in the darks now.
-Dave
-
Post a Thank You. - 1 Thanks
-
Nice, and the shadows are more open now.
I can see a little more cleanup is needed in the cloning -- put a Curve layer above everything and pull the two ends straight in until you see huge contrast, then go to Luminosity mode for the layer. Use a brush at 50% opacity for blending.
I always inspect content-aware fill this way as it sometimes gives areas of subtle posterization in plain areas. (Wish they would fix that.)
-
Lifetime Member
Svante,
Good improvements with Diane's suggestions. The wingtip is excellent.
Cheers,
-Michael-
-
Originally Posted by
Diane Miller
Use a brush at 50% opacity for blending.
I always inspect content-aware fill this way as it sometimes gives areas of subtle posterization in plain areas. (Wish they would fix that.)
Thanks Diane. Sorry for being so slow in following your advice but its not until know that I have been able to get PS back from Swedish to English version (I have always worked on the english version and the swedish terminology now confuses me real bad ;-).
Anyway I am afraid that I do not understand the last part about the brush for blending. Which brush should I use for blending and how do I get it to blend ?!? Brushing on an adjustment layer doesn't do a thing ?!?
I always have a bit of a problem cloning when the thing I am cloning is slightly "noisy" because in the cloned areas the "noise" tends to disappear. Am I doing something wrong ?!?
/Svante
PS I a really appreciate your assistance - it really makes the ETL forum the best !!!
-
Apologies for not being clear. I never know how much a reader is familiar with this stuff. (And I have enough trouble just dealing with my native language!!)
I meant you can set the cloning brush to a low opacity (usually 50% is enough) to smooth out tonal transitions as you paint things. (And keep the bush soft so the edges feather out.)
You are right, the same thing that will smooth out tonal transitions such as posterization in an area you are cloning will also smooth out any noise or other texture. I do noise reduction first, which helps if the issue is just noise. The newer versions of PS have a healing brush and patch tool that will work sometimes.
-
this is such a beautiful photo, well worth the work you put into it, thanks for reposting
