GBH In a Tree

[Amy DeStefanis]

As I was shooting this subject, I had going thru my mind all of the warnings about shooting up into the trees.... But there I went anyway - because he was just so... right there! And still. and the background was good for once! ;)

So, I cropped for composition, and in PS, I reduced noise on the background, and made a background layer that I used 60% opacity Linear Burn on to get the blues and clouds back. Then I inverted the mask, and used Linear DODGE to lighten the Heron. This was a 26% opacity layer. I also sharpened the heron.

Thanks for your feedback!

Amy D.

P.S.: Shooting info
Nikon D80
70-300VR @ 270mm
1/200 sec @ f/8.0
ISO 400
HandHeld
Manual Exposure

[Lisa Williams]

Amy, Looks more like a drawing than a painting. I think it is excellent.

[Lance Peters]

HI Amy - I like what you were trying to achieve here - I like the overall effect, the work on the BG is excellent.

I think the eye could be sharpened a tad more. The branches intersecting the body of the bird is unfortunate - but you have done the best you could in the circumstances.

Well done.

[denise ippolito]

Amy, I think you did a good job w/ it. I like the pose!

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Amy,
I like it too - I like the pose and the minimal feel that the branches give the image. Well done!
Regards,
Nicki

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Amy Not sure what is going on with that bird but it lost something in the PS process? Looks a little strange color wise. Need to go over it with another USM pass seems a little soft !!!

You did come up with an elegant pose and good head angle. It is difficult to make this work with such a steep angle but fun making them :)

[Jackie Schuknecht]

I like it Amy,
Might just get rid of the uppermost branch. It does look like a painting.

[Harold Davis]

hi amy, i saw a strong blue color cast so i opened it in capture nx2 and color balanced it along with adjusting the brightness and contrast. funky looking histogram after the color balance forced me to do that!! no sharpening done. bird looks a little better i think. you can change the bg if you dont like it!! i think it's pretty cool, just wished the blue came up to the half way point to give it a two tone bg.

[Amy DeStefanis]

Hi Harold,
Maybe it's time to calibrate my monitor - because while there's a cold tone to the original, I don't see a really strong blue cast. The repost has a lot of contrast.

Here is a version that's a little more sharpened, and with the color temperature warmed up a bit. I'll post the original, too.....

Thanks, everyone, for the comments.

Amy D.

[Harold Davis]

does look better, maybe just a little more USM and that'll do it!

[Nonda Surratt]

I like the image Amy and nice repost!