I recently returned from a safari in Africa where I took the attached picture of a hornbill. Aside from the crop, this is pretty much what the raw file looks like. I'd like to darken the background or replace it entirely with a more interesting sky. I'm having trouble making a selection of the bird that doesn't result in halos, especially around the feathers near the head. Any processing suggestions on that would be welcome.
Canon 5DIV
Canon 100-400 II IS, at 400 mm
F5.6
Shutter 1/1250
ISO 400
Mounted on a Sirui monopod
Converted in Canon DPP 4.6
David, these are wonderful birds and I enjoyed watching and photographing them when I was in Africa earlier this year. You'd handled the direct early morning/late afternoon light well to achieve good tones and colours on the bird. However, the bird is quite soft and I'm assuming from your comments the RAW was also soft? Sharpening with unsharp mask is definitely worth a try but you may find it introduces more artefacts than clarity. Give it a go anyway. As for the sky, always difficult in these shots especially where the bird has a lot of 'friz' around its margin. The only way I've found is to make the best selection possible then tidy up later with some localised burning. The other option is to select along the inner edge of the 'friz' and use a little feathering on the selection before darkening the background. Again, you still may have to tidy up the edge.
Hi David,
Welcome to BPN.
I love hornbills and very nice to find one in a nice clean environment.
2 big issues with this image: the bird is soft and you have cut off the tail with this comp. Do you have more room on the RHS?
Assuming you had blue sky in BG one trick I use (if you have LR) is to DECREASE the SATURATION of the blues ( in HSL tab) after you select the bird and feather the selection and try refine edge in photoshop,
Gail
Thanks everyone for their comments and suggestions. I agree that this is not the sharpest picture (it is about a 20% crop), and possibly not worth the effort I'm putting into it. This is more of a learning exercise, as I have a number of pictures that I have similar questions about how to make accurate selections of birds with rough outlines. Here is a modified version of the picture. Let me know if you think this is better or worse. I have some others of the same bird that include the tail feathers, but not as good a pose.
David, a marked improvement in detail and addressing the softness of the original - great work. The tones on the bird definitely look better. I'm not bothered by the tail as it's mostly obscured by the perch anyway so trying to keep what little of it is visible not a concern to me. I also think the light grey sky works a bit better than the white in the OP.
Hornbill
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