Sandhill Crane portrait/composite

[Warren Spreng]

I came upon two Sandhill Cranes in the parking lot in the subdivision we were staying at in North Fort Myers, so suffice it to say the BG sucked. So I decided to see what I could do with a closeup of one of the Cranes and then I shot a tree OOF and put the two images together. I had to paint in the color of the background in the hole in the beak. At least they cooperated by holding quite still with me about 15 feet away! Canon 7D Mark II, Tamron 150-600mm, 309mm, ISO 400, 1/1250, f/10, HH, AF on the bird, MF to blur the tree.

[Andrew Harrell]

Wow, just a great job on blending the two. Teach me how to do this! I have a bunch of sandhill crane photos that I think are pretty good with the bird, but horrible backgrounds. I need to learn this technique ....

I'm surprised to see so much yellow on the neck/throat area as compared to the original. Were you doing anything to the bird post-pic, like upping Contrast?


AP

[Warren Spreng]

Thanks Andrew! It is a matter of doing a very careful selection of the bird and a very slight feathering on the selection, then some careful blending once the image is pasted onto the background. As to the yellow, I did a slight increase in vibrance, and of course the raw image shown below is highly reduced so the yellow is quite muted. The yellow was quite evident just looking at them when I was shooting, I would really have liked them to be a bit further along in their summer plumage as I would have liked the nice gray and white that is prominent during mating season.

[Glennie Passier]

Well Warren, that's impressive work! Well done. I met some of your cranes (our brolgas) in a outback town, walking down the main street. I had a lovely back drop of 4WD's! They are still on my hit list. I'm not sure how I would have gone ab out this myself but here are some things I have thought of when I look at what you have done. I would have blurred the BG as much as it could take and most probably taken out the OOF tree branches and blues, and would consider making it a lighter BG. I can appreciate the effort that you put into selecting the bird to put him on the BG, but I think there is a very slight halo around him. I am often baffled by careful selection and wonder how it is done. Refine Edge maybe?

The details are terrific. Well done Warren.

[Warren Spreng]

Thanks Glennie, yes, in certain areas, particularly on the top of the head where there are very fine feathers it was really difficult to blend that area into the background. I have watched a number of videos on blending two images together but there are still some areas that can be improved upon.

[Diane Miller]

Bloody excellent! Love the detail and color on the bird!

The best way to cut out a bird with fine detail is Topaz ReMask. Not intuitive but they have a good tutorial. But the Quick Selection tool in PS is often enough, combined with toggling to Quick Mask mode (Q key) and touching up difficult edges with the brush (black paints red and white erases it). Zoom WAY in. Then toggle back to a selection with Q. I don't like to do a cutout as such, but turn the selection into a mask so I can edit it later if I find a flaw.

Place the new BG under the bird layer and it is completely editable, too -- for cloning, blurring, etc. Or for dragging in a new one in the layer stack.

I like to find a BG that is similar in color to the original one so edges aren't so critical. In this case, if you could have gotten lower you might have has a solid gray BG behind the bird. (But maybe not.)

[Warren Spreng]

Thanks Diane! I used the Quick Selection Tool to start and then like you described I zoomed in on critical areas. I need to use the Quick Mask Mode more as I haven't worked with that tool that much. That might have helped me with those fine feathers on the top of the head.

[Diane Miller]

Quick mask is such an easy thing to do -- it's just a toggle to give an alternate view of a selection, and a way to modify it with the brush. Check the tutorials on my web site.

[Warren Spreng]

Quick mask is such an easy thing to do -- it's just a toggle to give an alternate view of a selection, and a way to modify it with the brush. Check the tutorials on my web site.

Thanks, I'll check that out!