Burrowing Owls

[Mike Landwehr]

This is not a photo that I would ordinarily post, because of the very busy background. But, these two juvenile owls were so cute, I couldn't resist. I applied some gausian blur to the background, and cropped out the OOF foreground and selectively sharpened the owls. Suggestions on better ways to handle the busy background would be welcomed!

Canon 1D Mark II N
500mm + 1.4x
ISO 200
1/500 @ f/8

[Randy Stout]

Mike:

Love the birds, background as mentioned is busy, but also bright, which further draws our attention away from the birds.

This is a very quick version with the luminosity of the background lowered via a layer, curves adjustment, fill with black, large soft brush to paint in the effect I wanted.

I also selectively treated the flower in the upper left corner, which even with the above treatment, jumped out at me.

Just an option.

Randy

[David Thomasson]

I agree, the comical expressions make this well worth posting! :D

I was a little puzzled and distracted by the dark halos around the subjects.

[Callie de Wet]

Very nice, and cute. Not a PP master, but suggest delete the BG completely and replace with a gradient BG in tan and blue or tan and green. This will pop the owlets off the screen.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Suggestions on better ways to handle the busy background would be welcomed!

Too late for this image, but the best way would have been to go as low as you could (e.g. down flat on your belly - watch out for those ants though!!) in order to make the BG more naturally distant, thus more OOF and blurred.

Love the expressions on the owlets!!:)

[Mike Landwehr]

Thanks, Daniel, for the reprocess and repost. Your changes definitely improved the image. David, the dark halo is the result of a hurried attempt to blur the entire image with Gaussian Blur, then use a layer mask and brush to remove the blur from the owls. I think I'll try to find a better way to select the owls and apply the background blur, and then reprocess the entire image to incorporate Daniel's suggestions, and hopefully avoid the halo! Thanks to all for your help.

[David Thomasson]

David, the dark halo is the result of a hurried attempt to blur the entire image with Gaussian Blur, then use a layer mask and brush to remove the blur from the owls. I think I'll try to find a better way to select the owls and apply the background blur, and then reprocess the entire image to incorporate Daniel's suggestions, and hopefully avoid the halo!

You can find some pointers for background blur, without halos, in this thread (check the links in my first post):

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=53815