I took another pose of the same male cardinal that I posted yesterday and cloned out all of the distracting branches except the perch. The biggest challenge was an OOF branch running horizontally across the front of the bird's body. I think I did a better job on this one, but to to hide the smudges I also posterized it and will post that in the OOTB forum next. I can also post the pre-cloned original here if anyone wants to see it.
Canon 5DMKII, 300mm f4L IS, + 1.4X TC (420mm), ISO 400, f8 @ 1/400sec, 0 EV, pattern metering, HH
PP: Lightroom 2.6
very large crop
set black and white points
enhanced clarity and vibrance
tweaked tone curve
cloned out all branches except perch
used GND to darken brightness from left to right
adjustment brush: selective contrast and sharpening of eye and crest; selective brightening of eye in shadow
Nik Software: Dfine 2.0; Sharpener Pro
PSE: clone stamp tool; adjustment brush for smoothing BG; resized for the web
that's a very cool perspective!! different and i like it. there is some funkiness going on around his head feathers. maybe some of the smudge marks left over? the bird's left eye looks like you tried lightening it. looks washed out. i would leave it alone all together since the light was coming from the other side.
i think some more PP work would really make this shine and i think it's worth it!!
Not bad for the PS work, always work at high magnification for more precision !!! Most steep angles don't work but I do like this one !!! If you have the original post it, neat to see what you did !!!
Harold, you pegged my mistakes, alright!:D Thanks for pointing all of that out for me. The head feathers look that way due to clumsy cloning. I don't know what I was thinking when I messed with the eye. Gives me a reason to go back and rework it.
Gus, I am always glad to get critiques as well as encouragement!:)
Alfred, I always forget to magnify the image. I will try and remember next time. I will post the original with no additional PP, except for cropping and basic exposure adjustment in Lightroom.
Last edited by Julie Brown; 03-13-2010 at 05:09 PM.
Thanks for the comment, Lance.
Sometimes I don't know enough to follow the rules-but it was the stare and the punk rocker crest that made this appealing to me.:D
Male Cardinal 2
