Above the clouds (copied from OOTB)

[Rod Wiley]

Because of lightening the background from very dark mangroves to this above the clouds look I felt it would be best to post this image here instead of the avian critic. This image was taken from very far away and it only represents less than 20% of the image. I shot it in raw and enlarged the entire image before cropping out the two fighting birds. Not a ton of editing just lightening up the background, and slightly adjusted the right birds head to face the other birds face. You can still see the sand in the forground, the inlet, and the mangroves in the white area. The finished image is printed to 11.5 X 16. Thanks Rod

[denise ippolito]

Rod, This is stunning! I love the details in the wings and the aerial fight. I wish the one head was not covered partially by the wing, but I'm sure you wish the same. The tone on tone coloring is beautiful to me. This reminds me of one of Fabs images. Below is a link
http://www.avianscapes.com/#a=0&at=0...=10000&s=0&p=0

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Rod,
this is incredible. Thanks for sharing. I am in awe! :)

[Mark Fuge]

Great work. Congrats.

[Dave Phillips]

beautiful Rod....the detail for that crop is amazing.
Should definitely also be in "Avian" to be appreciated by more.....this one needs viewing.

Thanks for sharing

[Cheryl Slechta]

Rod, this is stunningly beautiful. It has a very delicate feel to it in contrast to the agressive behavior. And I
love the bg:)

_________
Cheryl

[Mike Veltri]

Lovely Shot

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Rod, Love the mood and the fight and the great detail. Bumer that the head of the RH bird is partially hidden by the near-wing.

You wrote, "Because of lightning the background from very dark mangroves to this above the clouds look..."

I am confused by the above. Did you mean "lightening"? Was the BGKR behind these birds originally mangroves???

If you could post the original image here without and lightning or lightening I think that it would help everyone to better understand the situation.

[Stu Bowie]

I also picked up lightning should be lightening. Apart from that, amazing midair interaction. Both birds well exposed, and love the hint of yellow of their beaks and feet against the BG. Great capture.

[Kobus Tollig]

i like it lots. Super comp action and mood

[Mike Lentz]

Whoa nellie! You've got yourself quite a fine image here!

[Rod Wiley]

Artie here's what the original looked like, I can't put my hands on the raw file so this is the cropped version of the original file showing the background. I had sold the image in both versions however the lighter one does better. Rod

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Rod, If you ever find the RAW, I'd love to see the whole thing. Now I have more questions: How did you select the background? How did you protect the edges?

An amazing concept you came up with there and some great pp work.

[Rod Wiley]

I did this image a couple of years ago and used selective color and selected the birds because of the whiteness. then expand the selection by 2 pixels and feather by 2 pixels, invert the selection and use curves. Pull the line up on the left side of the box to lighten the image and then brush the image to the disired look. The left birds wing was cropped off and I needed to add about 8" of wing. Rod

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Rod, Thanks, but now I am more confused than ever!

re:

I did this image a couple of years ago and used selective color and selected the birds because of the whiteness.

That makes sense but how did you select the legs and bill???

then expand the selection by 2 pixels and feather by 2 pixels, invert the selection and use curves. Pull the line up on the left side of the box to lighten the image and then brush the image to the disired look.

That all makes sense until you say "brush the image." What do you mean by that and how do you do it????

The left birds wing was cropped off and I needed to add about 8" of wing.

How did you do that? There does not seem to be anything in the quasi original to add. Did you grab it from another frame?

[Rod Wiley]

Artie writing was not one of my best subjects in school. When I wrote the article for the April issue of Shutterbug it took me three weeks. I was afraid to click spell check for fear of crashing the computer. All that said here goes:

1.Open image
2. Use color range and put the pointer on the white part of the wing. Move the fuzziness slider to the right until all the white is selected, click OK
3. Using the Magic Wand while holding down the Shift key select the other parts of the bird
4. Now expand the selection and feather it by around 2 pix
5. With all the birds and feet selected copy/paste it into a new layer, now you should have two layers the birds and the original
6. Select the original layer, and at the bottom of the layers palette select the curves layer mask. Take the left side line in the curves box and drag it up the left side of the curves box and it will make the photo go white. Click OK
7. In the curves layer you'll see a white box on the right. This is where you can take a black paint brush and start working the white around as desired.
8. turn on the copy of the birds above the original and curves layer, this will put the birds on top of every thing and they won't be damaged as you work the whites around.
9. This is not a fast process and blending the image to taste really takes some time.I need to go around both birds one pixel at a time to blend them together.

I know allot of this you already know but I thought by using an outline it would help to explain it better. I used a wing tip from a photo taken just before this photo. Rod

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks a ton Rod. It is not as easy to write a good tutorial as most folks think. This one is clear and it will be easy to follow. And the time was obviously worth it. Hard to imagine the work that went into getting the crest feathers so sharp...