Thoughts on really messing with a background

[Warren Spreng]

A friendly gray squirrel decided to pose for me atop my feeder so decided to take a shot to practice on a background that wasn't ideal. In this one there was a tree that went right up behind the front paws and out of the head. It was OOF but still very distracting. So I masked the squirrel, blurred the background and then cloned the heck out of the tree.
EOS T3i Tamron SP 150-600 ISO400 1/500 330mm f/9 All work in PS CC, slight increase in saturation and vibrance, slight sharpening performed.

[Edward Arthur]

A cute pose and I like the snow on the nose and tucked paws. Typical BG for this time of year (I hate it!) resulting in some of the fine details of the tail getting lost in it. Obviously I haven't seen the original image, but it looks like you did a very good job of cloning out the clutter.

BTW, how do you like that Tamron?

[Warren Spreng]

A cute pose and I like the snow on the nose and tucked paws. Typical BG for this time of year (I hate it!) resulting in some of the fine details of the tail getting lost in it. Obviously I haven't seen the original image, but it looks like you did a very good job of cloning out the clutter.

BTW, how do you like that Tamron?

Thanks Ed, I'll post the original image when I get a chance so you can see the tree I refer to. As to the Tamron it is my first lens of this type so not sure if I am a good one for a reference but in the short time I have had it I like it a lot, and I bought it based upon other reviews I had read. I find it snaps to focus very quickly and so far I'm happy with the sharpness of the images. I just received my tripod I plan to use with it so I'll be interested to see if the sharpness improves even more when I'm not handholding my shots!

OK, here is the original shot before cloning out the tree

[Diane Miller]

Wonderful cloning job, and nice sharp image! Squirrels are so cute -- until they nest in your attic. Looks like the lens is a good choice for you. Working on a tripod should definitely improve sharpness in marginal situations, and give you the leeway to get more depth of field with lower shutter speeds, if the subject is not too nervous. I toss images that aren't sharp at a 100% view. "Sharpening" is largely a myth. It's best for compensating for the softening of an anti-alias filter and for the resizing of an output JPEG. Occasionally more, but not routinely.

[Warren Spreng]

Thanks Diane! I have to get used to not needing sharpening like you do in AP. Since you are leaving the shutter open for up to 20 minutes while the mount tracks the movement you are always sharpening to bring out details buried in the image.

[Diane Miller]

I dunno -- maybe you know a trick that can help us!! Speak up if you see it!! Our humble tricks are usually Unsharp Mask and PS's Smart Sharpen. There are some other methods that I think are more common in astrophotography, Richardson-Lucy deconvolution and maybe others. Haven't had time to digest them. Feel free to educate us! Sharpening is a holy grail for nature photographers.

[Warren Spreng]

I dunno -- maybe you know a trick that can help us!! Speak up if you see it!! Our humble tricks are usually Unsharp Mask and PS's Smart Sharpen. There are some other methods that I think are more common in astrophotography, Richardson-Lucy deconvolution and maybe others. Haven't had time to digest them. Feel free to educate us! Sharpening is a holy grail for nature photographers.

I typically do a High Pass filter for overall sharpening, but for specific area sharpening it is still Unsharp Mask and Smart Sharpen. There are other "tricks" we have to use in AP such as the addition of flats, darks and bias to help remove things such as noise, vignetting, hot pixels, etc. I have noticed people commenting about using cloning to get rid of dust motes etc in some of the images which I would have to experiment to see if adding flat files to a bird, landscape, etc image would be of any value. Since most images are taken with very rapid SS compared to a DSO image I don't think these functions are usually needed.

[Diane Miller]

High Pass sharpening is a great technique, but, like Clarity in LR/ACR, it gives the appearance of sharpening with midtone contrast. With the High Pass technique you can control the radius for a finer or coarser effect. But sharpening introduces artifacts that can be a problem when an image is resized. It's best done only on a derivative of the master file that has been resized for output. Some very judicious sharpening can be done on a master file, such as the LR/ACR default, which works behind the scenes on the L (lightness) channel in LAB mode, and causes fewer artifacts than sharpening a rasterized file in PS.

The astrophotography techniques for noise removal that depend on many exposures of a still subject won't work for most of our shots, although back in film days it was a technique used for studio and still-life type subjects. Just stacking 3-4 shots made an improvement. Now I seem to get the same results (or better!) from a single frame with today's software and a low-noise camera body. But that was with a reasonable exposure of a bright AP subject -- I'm sure it is much more important for a very dim subject that is well down into the noise.

I need to try that -- with a perched bird that's sitting still but a dark BG that I know I'll want to bring up, try a burst. (On a tripod, of course.) Even if the bird moves a little, I'd just need the BG -- stack and do Median (I think that's the technique?) and mask the bird back from one frame to eliminate any movement on its part. Hmmmm -- you've given me a idea......

Subtracting dark frames for hot pixels works for us, but somehow they seem to be automatically removed in LR/ACR. Don't know how it can tell, but I noticed that processing something a while back. And they're not an issue for most of our exposures.

Flats correct vignetting, which can be significant at wide apertures, but LR/ACR has lens profiles that correct 95% of it in a single click, along with chromatic aberration and other lens defects.

Cloning is for dust specs on the sensor -- a perennial problem which is much more noticeable at small apertures and after some effects in PS such as Nik's Detail Extractor and Viveza's Structure. But the Spot Healing Brush Tool is a miracle for that chore, with a Clone occasionally being necessary in tight quarters.

In so many ways we have it better today!

[Warren Spreng]

High Pass sharpening is a great technique, but, like Clarity in LR/ACR, it gives the appearance of sharpening with midtone contrast. With the High Pass technique you can control the radius for a finer or coarser effect. But sharpening introduces artifacts that can be a problem when an image is resized. It's best done only on a derivative of the master file that has been resized for output. Some very judicious sharpening can be done on a master file, such as the LR/ACR default, which works behind the scenes on the L (lightness) channel in LAB mode, and causes fewer artifacts than sharpening a rasterized file in PS.

The astrophotography techniques for noise removal that depend on many exposures of a still subject won't work for most of our shots, although back in film days it was a technique used for studio and still-life type subjects. Just stacking 3-4 shots made an improvement. Now I seem to get the same results (or better!) from a single frame with today's software and a low-noise camera body. But that was with a reasonable exposure of a bright AP subject -- I'm sure it is much more important for a very dim subject that is well down into the noise.

I need to try that -- with a perched bird that's sitting still but a dark BG that I know I'll want to bring up, try a burst. (On a tripod, of course.) Even if the bird moves a little, I'd just need the BG -- stack and do Median (I think that's the technique?) and mask the bird back from one frame to eliminate any movement on its part. Hmmmm -- you've given me a idea......

Subtracting dark frames for hot pixels works for us, but somehow they seem to be automatically removed in LR/ACR. Don't know how it can tell, but I noticed that processing something a while back. And they're not an issue for most of our exposures.

Flats correct vignetting, which can be significant at wide apertures, but LR/ACR has lens profiles that correct 95% of it in a single click, along with chromatic aberration and other lens defects.

Cloning is for dust specs on the sensor -- a perennial problem which is much more noticeable at small apertures and after some effects in PS such as Nik's Detail Extractor and Viveza's Structure. But the Spot Healing Brush Tool is a miracle for that chore, with a Clone occasionally being necessary in tight quarters.

In so many ways we have it better today!

That would be interesting to see how that technique of stacking for the background, and yes, I would think Median would be the right method.

[Diane Miller]

I'll try to give it a try this weekend.

[Sandy Witvoet]

Nice "messing with the background," Warren! Your cloning worked quite well. I see only a couple of (what I call) duplicates...mostly at the upper right side. We have lots of these gray squirrels around here... their colors vary quite a bit... your specimen is pretty interesting with the brownish tones... and, in the winter, they always have their "winter coats" on, like the white ear tufts and longer hair... Good work, and thanks for your descriptions!

[Warren Spreng]

Nice "messing with the background," Warren! Your cloning worked quite well. I see only a couple of (what I call) duplicates...mostly at the upper right side. We have lots of these gray squirrels around here... their colors vary quite a bit... your specimen is pretty interesting with the brownish tones... and, in the winter, they always have their "winter coats" on, like the white ear tufts and longer hair... Good work, and thanks for your descriptions!

Thanks Sandy!