Palehead Rosella

[Jenny Wren]

This is a juvenille Palehead Rosella. His feathers are not quite as vibrant as his parents.

The photo was taken in a strong, gusty breeze, late in the day and semi cloudy. There was a lot of movement in the branches. I was surprised to see the "painterly?" looking OOF bird. I think this ghosting may have come about from the movement of the branches? This is cropped 50%. The bird in focas appears soft.

Once again, I can see a lot of noise. I have run NR over. Various other PP fiddles! :confused: Any suggestions?

Canon 400D
Lens EF100-400
Focal Length 400mm
1/500sec @f5.6
ISO 200
No flash
"Average" Meter
Hand held

Comments and critisisms always welcome.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Jenny

Love the soft feel and bg Would have tried focusing on the eye, the back side seems a little sharper. Also having a higher ISO would have given higher shutter speed which wouldn't hurt !! Do like the second oof bird Does have a painterly feel !!! Excellent !!!

[Cheryl Flory]

I like the almost mirror image look to this photo. but might clone out the one in the upper left corner, and maybe even the very bottom one.

[James Jans]

I'm really taken with the background coloration! It really gives a painted impression. I like it a lot!

Jim

[Ron Boisvert]

Hi Jenny,
I think this image has a lot going for it - interesting BG, complimentary poses, head turned back to look at you, nice composition, but what struck me was that your subject looked soft, as you said. I was less concerned about the noise than the sharpness (though I personally would try more noise reduction on the BG), and I significantly sharpened it in PS, and to me, it looked much better.

IMHO, I think if you sharpened just the foreground bird, you would improve your image. A selection border just inside the birds profile (Select-Modify-Contract-1 Pixel) would help minimize the telltale mark of oversharpening, if you do. I think you did a very good job in what sounds like a challenging situation!

my 2 cents...

Onwards and upwards!

[Jenny Wren]

Thank you all for kind comments and suggestions. I will try some out a bit later when there is time for me.

. A selection border just inside the birds profile (Select-Modify-Contract-1 Pixel) would help minimize the telltale mark of oversharpening

Ron, Thank you for this. I can spend hours on PP to not much reward. Would you suggest USM for the sharpening?

[Ron Boisvert]

Jenny,

I have seen nothing in digital photography that has created so much confusion as the best method of sharpening. It seems there are as many opinions and techniques as there are people to offer them. I have tried some of them, but for my part, USM produces satisfying results in most cases. In my opinion, if you are new to digital processing, USM is a good way to get a feel for what sharpening can and cannot accomplish.

From my studies, LAB sharpening, Smart Sharpening, and using the High Pass Filter are very common techniques, and a Google search will probably keep you busy for hours, and as a side effect, may have your head spinning too! Again, IMHO, USM is an effective tool, especially for newbies like me.

I'd love to know what our moderators think about this!

P.S. When I worked on your "posted" image, I used USM: Amount: 100%, Radius: 0.5 pixels, Threshold: 0; increase and decrease the Radius from 0.2 to 1.0 and look at the bird. If you go as high as 1.0 you will see the halo you want to avoid, hence my suggestion about making a careful selection of the bird's edges. Have fun!

my 2 cents...

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Hi Jenny
I would consider myself FAR from being an expert but I had a little tinker with your image. This is what I did.

copy layer
used a Quick Mask to cover the RHS bird and the branches nearby that appear on the same focal plane
ran Neat Image noise reduction on the image (RHS bird not affected as I covered it and branches with the Quick Mask)
Then inverted the selection so now the bird and branches are not covered, BUT the BG is
Applied a Sharpen Edges filter
Refined Edges at about 1 pixel
Then selected the eye only with a circular selection tool
Applied Smart Sharpen at 126/0.3 ox and REMOVE LENS BLUR option
Then Refined Edges as above


Mind you, I do noise reduction on the Master PSD (or TIFF) files before resizing for web, though sometimes after resizing I ran a little NR again, if it needs it. I feel the original is a little soft? Would that be correct?

Saved for web

[Ron Boisvert]

Hi Jenny,

I hope you don't consider it presumptuous of me, but I took a few minutes to make a few adjustments to your image to see what we could get out of it.

Here's what I did:
1. used the Patch tool and Clone/Stamp tool to remove the two distracting branches
2. selected the bird with the Quick Selection Tool, kept the selection inside the edges, and saved the selection
3. inverted the selection and ran color and luminance noise reduction on the background
4. reloaded the selection, and ran USM on the bird at Amount 100%, Radius 0.8, Threshold 0
5. made a minor brightness and contrast enhancement

What do you think?

[Gus Cobos]

I love the lively thread, good advise given from your BPN brothers Jenny...and the techs. explained...When I first saw your image I said to myself, this is very good in the sense that the bird in the foreground was day dreaming thinking of his better half, thus the painterly look of your second subject in the background...I actually like it, and was going to modify your base image by doing exactly what Ron did...so you see, the wind and moving branches helped in the creation of a semi-abstract painting...:):D;)...keep in mind than when photographing multiple subjects that are not in the same focal plane, you need to stop down on your aperture, increase your ISO factor and make sure that your focus point is always on the eye...the eye is the key factor here...looking forward to your next one...:cool:

[Jenny Wren]

Ron & Akos,

Thank you for taking the time and effort to repost far superior versions of my original. I will try all the suggestions made.

Gus, Thank you also for the advice. Always welcome!

I have learnt more from this site in a week than what I have in two years of taking this wonderful hobby seriously.

[Lance Peters]

Love the painterly feel - Lots of good info and advice above.

To answer Rons question about sharpening - Personally I use a number of different methods on different images - Including Lab sharpening - USM and genuine fractals with Noel Carboni's actions.
Sharpening for the web is also a differnt matter to sharpening for printing purposes.

[Alfred Forns]

Love the eviction of the upper branch Since a great deal of PS has been done it was a natural !!! Excellent !!!