PP: Lightroom 2.6
80% crop
exposure: set black and white points
adjustment brush: selective exposure on foot
enhanced clarity and vibrance
cloned out distracting OOF branches in BG
Hi Julie, Nice image, like how the crest is flaired out and HA, the red bird looks good with the blue sky. Nice feather detail, the exposure of the tail is a little distracting. TFS.
Fantastic capture of Mr Cardinal, like the pose, and feather detail is super. We call these, "Stick Birds" and sticks are always a problem when photographing them in their natural habitant.
For my 2 cents worth, it is definitily a great picture of a Cardinal.
Hi Julie Love that pose, show an attitude on the bird !!!
This would be a great image to do some PS experimentation, would leave the perch and take everything else out !! A challenge but will teach you a few things and make you think.
A couple of hints, when cloning things do try the the patch tool also and at times you can select the area you don't want to touch then inverse and start going at it !!! ... also would desaturate overall just a bit !!!
Hi Julie
Alfred hit most of the things I was thinking about. I think his challenge will be a terrific learning experience for all of us actually.
The cardinal is very nice - good pose, sharp, nice HA. When I looked at the various histograms, the blues were over-saturated. Officially the reds aren't, but visually they seem too strong to me.
Your image is very much like a ton of images that I have as well. I think what happens for me is that in my mind's eye, I see an image like the one I have cropped here, and I don't take account of the whole frame. And I click the shutter before I actually create a complete image. In fact, sometimes I look at the image on my computer and say to myself, "why didn't I see that stick coming out of the birds head?", or "Where did all that grass in front come from?" I don't know if this helps you or if I am even being clear, but it seems to help me - kind of like a light bulb going on.
Good luck with the processing. Looks challenging to me.
Gail, I like what you did in the repost. It eliminates the distracting elements. Thanks for relating your thought process on making images. The first thing I think about is to get the eye in focus, and usually forget everything else. I end up shooting too many images with the same mistakes. I really need to slow down and work on pre-visualizing the whole image.
I am still going to take on Al's challenge. If I have any success, I will repost.:D
Gail speaks with experience and the wisdom of looking at hundreds of posts that could of used the tips she mentioned. Branches coming out of heads, shadows in many places nearly impossible to remove and all the other things she brought up.
After seeing the great results you achieved I am very impressed with your editing skills with PS and you certainly don't need a second baseman.
Keep up the good work.
Uncle Gus
Last edited by Gus Hallgren; 03-13-2010 at 01:46 AM.
Gus, I don't mind your "butting in" at all. That is why I posted this image on this forum.:)
Thanks for the tutorial, I will try to follow the steps, but I really don't know my way around PSE. I also work on a Mac. Right now, I have been trying to clone out all of the branches, so when I get done with that I will move on to your repost.
Thanks for all the help, everyone-this is what I love about being a BPN member!:D
I reworked the Raw file in Lightroom, and then spent some time cloning out everything in the BG except the perch. I finished it off with the adjustment brush in PSE. This took quite some time, and you can see I had some problems with smudging.:o
I need a lot more practice!
The next challenge is to figure out Gus's method.:)
Last edited by Julie Brown; 03-12-2010 at 10:16 PM.
Thanks Gus- I practiced on another pose, which I will post in another thread. I think I did a better job of cloning on it. I also posterized and texturized it in PSE-which I will post in OOTB.
Thanks to Gus, Alfred, Gail, and Craig for all your help!:)
Male Cardinal
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