Rain and dark overcast at Nahanton Park in Newton MA.
I left the raindrops on the plumage, but quick-masked raindrop
trails in the BG.
Crop, sharpen, noise-reduced BG. Flash as main light at +2/3.
Good stuff as noted by Stuart but lots of room for improvement. Though the midtones are too dark, the sliver of white breast that we can see just above the bird's right wing is over-exposed (seen in a Levels check). The perch is a bit large but it is what it is. There was a nail sticking out of the top of the perch that I removed with many Quick Masks. Then I lightened the whole thing with a Levels adjustment and further lightened the mask with a Quick Mask and Control M (curves on a layer).
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
Thank you Stuart and Artie,
I love the re-post, great stuff.
Artie, I do all PS work on a Mac and it seems that I need to tone down
the brightness of the screen. Although on the Mac it looked good, on my
work PC the image looks definitely dark. Thanks for pointing that out :o
It seems to me that I should trust the Levels more than my eyes, sometimes.
About the overexposed white part, I check burned parts in Camera Raw as flashing red,
but this time there was none of that. I guess I need to look at the Levels histogram
more carefully for this too. The overexposure of the whites was actually the main problem with the images
(got several of the same bird), how to set the flash to expose the dark back without burning the whites.
I noticed the nail, but realized it will take lots of work. Not being too skillful with Quick
Mask yet, I admit I was too lazy to do that:)
The last part I actually don't understand:
"further lightened the mask with a Quick Mask and Control M (curves on a layer)."
I've got the Digital Basics, I only need to read it carefully:D
BTW the store looks great, I believe I was one of your first customers,
got the discount on a Giotto ball-head.:)
Rainy Tree Swallow
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote