Swallowtail

[Paul Lagasi]

Finally finish going through my Florida photos, and posted them to my blog.

The image below is one of those images I wished I'd been able to get, right out of the camera. Blistering sun, a black and white bird that constantly moves make exposure tough. The sky was burnt out so I too the sky from another photo and added it to the background. The right wing was bend at a weird angle so I cloned left wing and added it to bird. Made a few subtle changes to the wing so they wouldn't look exactly the same. Using Topaz artistic effect to get desired painterly effect.

Ciao for now

[Dennis Bishop]

Very nicely done. The strong primary diagonal and its placement are both effective, and I like the background. Good painterly effect, too.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Beautiful, Paul. You did a great job with the wings and I love the painterly effect and the placement of the kite. (And the subtle border)

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Really good job of putting this together Paul. I like the diagonal in the bg echoing the direction of travel. The bg colours are very soothing too. The eye contact is fabulous.

[Nancy Bell]

Paul, I truly enjoyed reading your blog about your Florida bird quest! You reminded me of all those times I only had a few desired species to find and how elusive and/or impossible to find! I still don't have some of those special Florida birds. Oh, and the heat, and humidity...

Good final image from what you described as your starting point. I like that the colors in the sky have a diagonal component to complement the diagonal line of flight of the bird. Great view of that hooked beak. Maybe a bit sharper for the eye?

[Mitch Carucci]

You did a nice job saving this very dynamic image.

[Diane Miller]

Very well done! I never would have guessed you did anything to the base image. Lovely!

[Anita Bower]

Great processing work! The result looks quite natural (I would never have guessed about the wing). Beautiful sky!