Assignment - Image To Work- "On The Look Out"

[Gus Cobos]

Assignment - Image To Work- "On The Look Out"


This was taken early afternoon at Wakodahatchee Wetlands in West Palm Beach County.

Note: This image is a straight RAW file, converted to jpeg format...Nothing was done to it...


Assignment: Work this image, making the corrections and enhancements necessary; using the post processing needed. List all the steps taken to polish the final product...

[Stefan Minnig]

Gus,

This sounded like fun...and it was a nice shot to work on as well.

When viewing the photo, there were a few branches and twigs that distracted my eye. I cloned out several in PS including the one in front of the breast, under the tail, and behind the head. There were others that I thought of removing, but decided against the idea of cloning out too much.

Working with a small image to begin with, I decided against cropping in.

I selectively lightened around the eye using masking. I also selectively sharpened the eye area and beak using the Sharpen tool. Using masking again, I selectively sharpened the entire bird and the limb used as a perch and partially sharpened the branch the perch was attached to. I did not want to sharpen the entire image, as it would lessen focus on the bird.

I adjusted the levels, slightly bumping up the darks and midtones. This helped, at least on my monitor, because when I created a final JPEG, the image lightened back up a little. I finally also bumped up the saturation, and then adjusted the cyan highlights back a bit.

And wallah. Birdy on tree.

Thanks for the opportunity Gus.

Stefan

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Stefan

Solid PS work and excellent result !!! Particularly like the work on the bird itself, eye area looks very good.

Pruning wise not bad, I was undecided on the large branch behind the head and can go either way. Leaving sort of looks more natural and its not a huge detractor. The little branch by the belly area did have to go. PS wise the original was flat and needed boost but just a little less !!! Thanks for working on it and showing the detailed steps, very helpful !!!

[Harold Davis]

awesome work stefan! this one is way beyond my skill set!

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi folks:

My turn: However, IMHO, it would be much better if you gave us a link to the raw file (Can put them on my website if you needed a place) Second: Do you exrtact the JPG from the Raw file, or do you excport it as a JPG fromACR or LR? Why should we have all the fun? I think the teachers should do their version of the homework! OK.

This was another seat of the pants, and got past the PONR when I was getting weary of tons of brush and eraser work as image was very small to work on.
I use an Arizona Sky I had photographed, and replaced the Florida swamp sky with a ton of Background eraser, and eraser at different opacities and hardness. Cropped a piece of chest out and moved to bird and blended in. Selectively Sharpened eye and beak, and desaturated yellow in beak. Cloned branch in front of tail.

Used curves, all eye droppers to color change bird, then use Exposure to taste, some vibrance, and a final Curves, preset Linear contrast with a tad of overall sharpening . . .

Your turn, young Mr Gus . . .

Uncle Gus

[Gus Hallgren]

Different Background

UG

[Harold Davis]

you guys are too cool for school!!!! awesome reposts!!! one thing that surprises me is that noone cropped it to move the bird from the center of the frame.

[Gus Hallgren]

Good thinking, Harold, was so busy with the tough part, overlooked the simple improvement.

Thanks

Uncle Gus

[Gus Hallgren]

Extended canvas using "Content Aware"

Adios Amigo's to my last working assignement, thought at least teacher would mark them :confused:

Uncle Gus