Wild Turkey

[Gail Spitler]

What I have been trying to portray with our local turkeys is the richness of the feathers. Editing in LR2 and CS4 minimal, no crop. I would love a bit more space on the bottom - any suggestions on how to do that with this image? [addition - I managed to increase the canvas below the feet with the crop tool and the clone stamp; easy as pie. All you gotta do is read Digital Basics II - Nov revision] This version is the image with more white at the bottom.
Comments and suggestions very much appreciated.

Thanks
Gail
Canon 7D with 100-400mm @400mm, f/5.6, 0EV, pattern metering, ISO 400, tripod on acratech ballhead.

[Richard Waas]

Gail, The feather detail is fabulous. I love it against the white background.... Not sure what you wanted for the space on the bottom. More white? More legs? Congrats!

[Gail Spitler]

Gail, The feather detail is fabulous. I love it against the white background.... Not sure what you wanted for the space on the bottom. More white? More legs? Congrats!

Thanks Richard. I am looking for a tad more white at the bottom.

Gail

[Julian Mole]

Hello Gail,

A striking image, due mostly to the unusual pose and the completely white surroundings.

Lovely detail and colours in the feathers, especially on the breast, upper wing and neck. The exposure looks spot on, however you could possibly increase the saturation a small amount in Photoshop to boost the colours - your call.

You must be pleased with this one.

Julian.

PS. Am not sure if the compsition would be improved by the bird being moved to the left in the frame? Am not experienced enough to say for sure! :-)

[Gail Spitler]

Thanks Julian - I did try saturating more, but decided against it. I conscious of over-doing, a frequent problem for me. It is nice to have something other than a "bird on a stick" image
Cheers
Gail

[Harold Davis]

i would add more canvas as you described, the way you did it! that's the same way i do it. the turk looks fantastic. feather detail is superb!! and the colors dont seem overdone. nice job!

[Gus Cobos]

I like it as presented Gail,
The feather detail and color rendition is superb, love the high-key look..:):cool:

[Lance Peters]

Hi Gail - love the detail in the feathers and the high key look.
To add more Canvas - try content aware scale in photoshop.
Good show :)

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Gail Mighty fine image About all I could wish for is a visible eye !!!

For extending canvas can try suggestion by Lance or just do the steps below.

Make a crop for the entire image then drag the opposite side to the one your adding away from the image, the area will turn white. Double click inside to finish the crop.

Make a new layer by pressing Ctr J

Activate the move tool V and drag the image.

After the area is filled just clean up the border between one and the other !!! Neat !!! If you have a problem let me know !!

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Great image, love high-key, and feather detail and colors excellent. The feet are not visible, and though probably blocked by something, in effect the same as a clip. Adding white canvas to the bottom doesn't make sense to me, and I'd crop the image to avoid the missing feet problem. To get an idea of what I'm talking about I included an image. regards~Bill

[Anita Rakestraw]

I agree with William about cropping more, rather than adding white to the bottom. Another option might be to add some vegetation, if you have it, so that the feet look immersed in it. The feather detail and colors are lovely; I also love the position/behavior, and the white background.

[Gail Spitler]

Thanks for the kind words and advice on adding canvas.
Bill & Anita - this bird is actually standing in about 3 in. of snow. In fact, I have another image taken at the same time, where the legs & feet look as in the top image. But I think what your comments about the crop lead me to is that the snow isn't quite coming across as snow, but rather just high-key.
Thanks very much for your comments & suggestions.
Cheers
Gail

[Anita Rakestraw]

Right, Gail, the snow needs some detail to identify it; as is, there is just the barest hint that snow is there. I would love seeing it with the snow apparent; and then you might even want to add just a tad to the bottom of the frame.

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Excellent high key image Gail. Excellent details and colors.

[Alfred Forns]

Is not a good idea to crop, you only have to show the virtual feet which are in the snow, cropping as presented by Bill makes the image clipped.

You want to extend the canvas to show the virtual feet and a little space just as if the feet were there.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi. I had no clue about the snow, and since I now know that does change things. I'd try one of several methods to bring out some detail in the snow. I also don't think you need a lot of detail, yet enough to make it apparent that it is snow. You could use the burn tool to see if you could coax detail out or select/ multiply mode. I have had much better luck working on the RAW image directly.
Assuming it was shot in Raw you could create a second version, only concerned with bringing out details of the snow. Working with the recovery slider and the exposure slider in ACR (comes with CS4) an amazing amount of detail can be brought out of what would seem to be blown whites; not always, but definitely worth a try. The curves-highlight/light adjustments also could be tried. Another posibility is using the gradient tool in ACR. Select the gradient tool icon, you mouse click from the bottom of the image and move up perhaps 1/4 of the way.Then decrease the exposure, increase contrast etc. on the sliders on the left of the dialog box to see if you get detail. Don't worry about the rest of the image- you will only be using the area at the bottom of the image, where the feet are covered. Once you've brought out detail use this image as a layer over your properly adjusted image and erase the parts you don't need. regards~Bill

[Gail Spitler]

Bill - thanks very much for the detailed suggestions. Much appreciated.
Gail