Just fooling around. I love the colors in these guys so I saturated it to a fare-thee-well. It kind of looked like a formal protrait to me. I know the eye is dark but not sure yet how to lighten it.
Interesting Carole. I agree that the eye needs work. You might want to zoom in on the eye and sort of add a highlight a little at a time, zooming back out to check that you've not gone too far. I have studied eye highlights closely (I do a little watercolor painting of birds etc) and if you look close, the eye shines are little sillouettes of the surroundings, so I attempt to duplicate this when needed. If you use several different size clone brushes and several different tones, you can come up with a natural looking eye shine, but you have to be careful not to over do it! Dan Brown
I love the saturation here but think if you want to go for a formal portrait look you might want to crop out some of the left and top to really put the focus on this beautiful bird.
Hi, let me chime in and tell you what I'd do to the eye.
In your original file, select the eye with the elliptical marquee tool or the quick selection tool if you have CS3. Feather about 2 pixels. Put the selection in another layer Command/Control J
Now go to Levels or curves, whichever you feel more comfortable with, and lighten the eye.
You can also add a catch light by using the white brush, at a 15% opacity and painting what you thk may look real.
tufted portrait
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