Found this guy hanging out with a flock of bluebirds along the lakeshore on Sunday. This was the only shot where he wasn't hiding behind a branch or in the shade, and even so I had to clone out some surrounding branches. I tried to dodge the shadow across the bird, but it's still bothersome. Any suggestions? C&C appreciated.
Hi Bill - quite like the composition and does look like a handsome fellow.
The shadow across the face is certainly distracting and looks out of place.
The only thing I can think of is to pattern clone from some other area's there - not a lot to work with though.
No other frames without the shadow in this spot??
Thanks Lance. Unfortunately, the only other frame in this pose has the same shadow. I tried cloning in some texture from below the shadow, and it worked well until I got to the area just beneath the eye where it was difficult to make it look right. The result was not worth posting. I'll give it another try, but probably just need to go find him again with better conditions.
You could probably do it Bill, but it would be tons of work. So hard to get a shot where everything works. Like the HA and the BG, just the shadow. I find these guys also never stay still for a shot.
Such a cute face and so nicely in focus! Isn't it just a pain that you caught him with that shadow? I tried a few tricks and I think there's no easy fix here, Bill. If you do decide to fix him up I'd also bring the bottom of the frame up so the end of the stick is cut off. Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Neat bird, good shot, shame about the shadow. Don't have a clue how to fix that. I'd tend to crop it to a 2x3 fomat, losing the end of the branch and perhaps a tad off the RH side so the eye is quite so centered in the frame.
I took another stab at removing the shadow. I made a layer of the shadow area, desat'd the blues and cyans, lightened until it looked like the adjacent areas; then used a small clone brush to eliminate the line between the shadow layer and adjacent; then touched up with clone-color and clone-luminosity tools until it looked almost right. I've lost some detail in the shadow area, so it's far from perfect. Curious what others think. I appreciate the comments about the crop, but I've left it per the OP since I sort of liked the bird at the end of the branch. Thanks to all for commenting.
Thanks Jackie and Julie. I have gone back and cloned in a bit more texture - it's marginally better but not so much as to make it worth reposting. Better to go find him again. Thanks for commenting.
White-breasted Nuthatch
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